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Soup

Potage De Profiteroles a LA Montgoffier

A French soup of mashed partridges or pullet mixed with béchamel, consommé, and eggs, folded into profiterole buns and simmered.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potage De Profiteroles a LA Montgoffier

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mash the meat of the cooked partridges or pullet.

  2. Mix in the béchamel sauce and boiling consommé.

  3. Add salt, pepper, nutmeg, and warm butter, then stir in the egg yolks.

  4. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

Fill and cook

  1. Fill the profiterole buns with the mixture.

  2. Soak the buns in consommé and place them in a buttered sauté pan.

  3. Cover the pan and place it on hot ashes for 20 to 25 minutes.

  4. Check if the soufflé has risen above the buns and is slightly firm.

Serve

  1. Transfer the buns to a soup tureen and pour over the prepared consommé.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Cooked partridge or pullet
Provides the main body and flavour of the filling.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set into a custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they lighten the mixture so it rises like a soufflé.
Béchamel sauce
Adds creaminess and moisture to the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whipped, and overmixing or deflating them loses the lift that makes the soufflé rise. Fold gently so the mixture stays light enough to puff during cooking.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, pepper, butter, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, pepper, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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