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Ham Souffle

A baked ham soufflé made with butter, onion, flour, paprika, milk, bread crumbs, ham, egg yolks, and stiff egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ham 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.

  2. Cook the onion without browning.

  3. Add the flour, paprika, and milk.

  4. Let the mixture boil until it begins to thicken.

  5. Strain the mixture over the bread crumbs and ham.

  6. Mix thoroughly.

Finish and bake

  1. Stir in the egg yolks.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Turn the mixture into a buttered baking dish.

  4. Set the dish in a pan of hot water.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 to 40 minutes.

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

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

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

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

  3. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  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
Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air, which lifts the soufflé as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help set the custard-like base as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture into a sauce that holds the other ingredients.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a smooth sauce.
Bread crumbs
Add body and absorb liquid, giving the soufflé a softer structure.
Ham
Supplies savoury flavour and salt-cured richness to the base.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently preserves the air trapped in the 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 (butter, flour, milk, bread, ham, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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