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Chicken Souffle

A baked chicken soufflé made with a white sauce, egg yolks, egg whites, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Whisk in the flour, salt, and pepper.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly until thickened.

  4. Stir in the bread crumbs and cook for 2 minutes.

  5. Remove from heat.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mix in the chicken, beaten egg yolks, parsley, and sherry.

  2. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 35 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot immediately to prevent the souffle from falling.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Meat + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they trap air that lifts the souffle as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help set the custard as it heats.
Milk
Forms the thickened white sauce that gives the souffle its body.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk mixture so it can hold the folded foam.
Minced chicken
Provides the main protein and savoury body of the souffle.
Bread crumbs
Add body to the base and help absorb liquid for a softer interior.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Whites hold air only while whipped; vigorous stirring knocks out the bubbles, so the souffle will rise less and turn dense.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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