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Salt Codfish Souffle

A baked souffle made with shredded codfish, flour, butter, milk, breadcrumbs, and eggs, seasoned with pepper, parsley, and onion juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Salt Codfish Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter.

  2. Whisk in the flour and milk until smooth.

  3. Rinse the codfish well.

  4. Add the codfish to the sauce along with pepper, parsley, breadcrumbs, and onion juice.

Add the eggs

  1. Separate the eggs.

  2. Beat the yolks until light and stir them into the mixture.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish.

  2. Surround the dish with hot water.

  3. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 30 minutes.

  4. Serve the souffle immediately in the baking dish.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air, lifting the soufflé as it bakes and giving it a light structure.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce that holds the rest of the mixture together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and softness to the soufflé.
Codfish
Provides the main savoury flavour and body of the soufflé.
Breadcrumbs
Soak up liquid in the sauce, adding body and a softer texture.

The step that matters

Fold the egg whites into the mixture. Folding gently keeps the air in the whipped whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the soufflé rise less and turn dense.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, pepper, egg, parsley, milk. 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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