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Lamb Soufle

A baked lamb soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, bread crumbs, lamb, egg yolks, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Lamb Soufle

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. Stir in the flour and cook for 1-2 minutes.

  3. Gradually add the hot milk, stirring constantly until thickened.

Mix and bake

  1. Mix in the bread crumbs, chopped lamb, egg yolks, and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 35 minutes.

  4. Serve with tomato sauce.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  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
Yolks enrich and bind the mixture, while whipped whites lift it into a light, airy structure.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a stable white sauce that holds the soufflé base together.
Butter
Forms the fat base for the roux, adding richness and flavor to the sauce.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and sets into a creamy sauce that gives the soufflé its moist body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid from the sauce and add body so the mixture holds its texture.
Lamb
Provides the main meaty filling and savory flavor of the dish.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites trap air only while they are whipped; folding gently keeps that air in, so the soufflé rises. Stirring or deflating them makes the bake flat and dense.

“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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