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Meat Souffle

A baked dish of veal or lamb folded with beaten egg whites and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Meat Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped veal or lamb, onion juice, parsley, and beaten egg yolks.

  2. Stir in the cream and season with salt and pepper.

Make the sauce and combine

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, add the flour, and gradually stir in the milk to make a sauce.

  2. Combine the meat mixture with the sauce and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.

Bake

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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

Veal or lamb
Forms the main body of the soufflé, giving it substance and savoury flavour.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help bind it, setting as the soufflé heats.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk sauce as its starch swells with heat.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the meat mixture tender.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens into a smooth binder.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the sauce and helps the flour cook smoothly.

The step that matters

Bringing the mixture to a boil while stirring constantly. Egg yolks can curdle and the flour sauce can scorch or lump if heated unevenly. Constant stirring spreads the heat and keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, parsley, egg, cream, butter, flour, milk. 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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