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Veal Soufflee

A steamed veal and pork soufflé with cracker crumbs, eggs, milk, butter, onion, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Veal Soufflee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a large bowl, combine the ground veal (or veal and pork), cracker crumbs, egg yolks, milk, melted butter, salt, pepper, chopped onion, and nutmeg.

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

Steam and serve

  1. Grease a pan and place greased paper at the bottom.

  2. Pour the mixture into the pan, cover tightly, and steam for 2.5 hours.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground veal
Forms the main body of the dish and gives it a meaty, savory base.
Egg whites
Beaten until stiff, they trap air and lighten the mixture so it rises and sets softly.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and add richness and structure as they set during cooking.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb the milk and butter, giving body and helping hold the mixture together.
Milk
Adds moisture, keeping the mixture tender rather than dry as it cooks.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Fold the whites gently so the air beaten into them is not knocked out. Overmixing deflates the foam, and the dish loses the lift that makes it soufflé-like.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, milk, butter, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, milk, butter, pepper, nutmeg. 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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