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Chicken Souffle

A baked chicken soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, chicken, onion juice, eggs, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Norton, Caroline Trask · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Chicken Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter.

  2. Add the flour, salt, and pepper to the butter.

  3. Cook the mixture for ten minutes, stirring until smooth.

Add the chicken

  1. Add the remaining seasonings to the chicken.

  2. Mix the sauce and chicken together.

  3. Stir in the well-beaten yolks.

  4. Stir the mixture over the fire for five minutes.

  5. Set the mixture aside to cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites very stiff.

  2. Stir the beaten whites lightly into the chicken.

  3. Put the mixture in a buttered pudding dish and bake in a hot oven for twenty minutes.

  4. Serve immediately in the same dishes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1000Calories
60 gProtein
30 gFat
119 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Chicken100g cooked165
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Norton, Caroline Trask. 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. See the original page.

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. Parsley + peppertop 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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the mixture and whites, beaten stiff, lift it to give the soufflé its airy rise.
Butter
Fat that is melted with flour to form the base sauce, adding richness and flavour.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce that holds the chicken and eggs.
Milk
Liquid that turns the flour and butter into a sauce, giving the soufflé its moist body.
Finely chopped chicken
Main filling that gives the soufflé its savoury flavour and body.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites very stiff and fold them in lightly. Stiffly beaten whites trap air that expands in the oven and lifts the soufflé. Over-mixing or deflating them while folding into the chicken base removes that air and leaves the soufflé dense and flat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, parsley, milk, chicken, 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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