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Small Game Souffles

A soufflé made from cold game meat, rice, butter, brown sauce, and eggs, baked or steamed and served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Small Game Souffles

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the mixture

  1. Pound the cold game with the cooked rice in a mortar.

  2. Add the butter, brown sauce, dissolved meat glaze, and seasonings.

  3. Bind the mixture with the yolks of the eggs and pass it through a sieve.

Shape and cook

  1. Gently fold in the whisked egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into well-greased timbale molds.

  3. Steam for 40 minutes or bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Turn out onto a hot dish, sauce with game sauce or poivrade sauce, and sprinkle with chopped parsley before serving.

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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

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

  5. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Game
Provides the main body and savoury meat flavour of the soufflé.
Cooked rice
Adds bulk and softness, helping the mixture hold a lighter texture.
Egg whites
Whisked to stiff froth, they trap air and make the soufflé rise and turn light.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and add richness and set when heated.
Fresh butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Brown sauce
Contributes depth of flavour and moisture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whisked whites hold air bubbles that give the soufflé its rise. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring or overmixing deflates the foam and produces a dense result.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, rice, butter, sauce, pepper, egg, parsley):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, rice, butter, sauce, pepper, egg, parsley. 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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