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Mackerel Souffle

A baked mackerel souffle made with butter, flour, milk, parsley, salt, baking powder, egg yolks, egg whites, and paprika.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Mackerel 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.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and stir until well blended.

  3. Pour in the milk, stirring constantly until the mixture is smooth and thick.

  4. Add the seasonings, then fold in the shredded mackerel.

Add the eggs

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks until thick and mix them in.

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

Bake

  1. Turn the mixture into a buttered baking dish.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 45 minutes, until firm and delicately colored.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + white peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiffness, they trap air and let the soufflé rise and become light.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help it set firm and custard-like as it bakes.
Butter
Fat that combines with the flour to form the roux that thickens the base.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a stable white sauce that holds the mackerel and air.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the sauce, adding moisture and softness.
Mackerel
Provides the main fish flavor and rich texture in the soufflé.

The step that matters

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

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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