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Chicken Souffle

A baked chicken and cream soufflé with beaten egg yolks and whites, seasoned with salt, pepper, and optional cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken 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. In a frying pan, bring the cream to a boil.

  2. Mix the flour with ½ cup of reserved cream and stir into the boiling cream; cook for 2 minutes.

  3. Add the chopped chicken and season with salt, pepper, and cayenne if desired; cook for 3 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolks; let cool.

Bake and serve

  1. When ready to serve, fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  3. Serve hot.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

Flour and butter 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

Egg whites
Whipped into the base to trap air, giving the souffle its rise and light texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help it set into a smooth, custard-like body when baked.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the souffle tender rather than dry.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a stable base that holds the chicken and supports the rise.
Chopped chicken
Provides the main savoury filling and body of the souffle.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Egg whites hold air only when whipped and folded lightly. Stirring or deflating them loses the air bubbles that make the souffle rise.

“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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