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Chicken Souffle

A baked chicken dish with breadcrumbs, parsley, and eggs.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. In a hot saucepan, rub together the butter and flour.

  2. Stir in the milk and bring to a boil.

  3. Add the stale bread crumbs and mix well.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the chopped chicken, parsley, salt, and pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Beat the eggs separately and fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour into a greased baking dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Beaten eggs set during baking, giving the soufflé its puffed, airy structure.
Butter and flour
Cooked together, they form a roux that thickens the milk into a smooth base.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the roux thickens into a creamy binding sauce.
Stale bread crumbs
Soak up the liquid and add body, helping the mixture hold together.
Cold chopped chicken
Provides the main protein and substance of the dish.

The step that matters

Fold in the eggs gently. Beaten eggs trap air that gives a soufflé its rise. Stirring or deflating them harshly knocks out that air, so the dish bakes flat and dense.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

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