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Veal Souffle

A baked dish of veal, cream, flour, and eggs, seasoned with pepper and sea salt, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal 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.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the cooked veal with the cream and flour until well combined.

  3. Beat the egg whites.

  4. Beat the egg yolks.

  5. Fold the beaten whites into the veal mixture.

  6. Fold the beaten yolks into the veal mixture.

  7. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into shallow pans.

  2. Bake until set.

  3. Cut the baked mixture into squares.

  4. Garnish with parsley.

  5. Serve hot.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Veal + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,766 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air, lifting the mixture and giving the soufflé its light structure as it sets.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the baked mixture tender rather than dry.
Flour
Thickens the veal and cream so the mixture holds its shape when baked.
Cooked veal
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the substance that the set custard-like base holds together.

The step that matters

Folding the beaten whites into the veal mixture. Folding gently preserves the air trapped in the beaten whites. Stirring or deflating them removes that air, leaving a dense rather than light soufflé.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, cream, flour, egg, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Turmericfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, cream, flour, egg, pepper. 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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