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Petits Souffles De Gibier

Small souffles made from cold game meat, rice, butter, sauce, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Petits Souffles De Gibier

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 meat

  1. Remove all the meat from the bones of the cold game.

  2. Pound the meat in a mortar with cooked rice, butter, brown sauce, and dissolved meat glaze.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and sweet herbs.

  4. Bind the mixture with 1 or 2 egg yolks and rub through a sieve.

Bake and serve

  1. Gently mix in the whipped egg whites until combined.

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

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until set.

  4. Turn out onto a dish and serve with game sauce or poivrade sauce, sprinkled with parsley.

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

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

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

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

  3. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Meat + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,481 recipes

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

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Cold game meat
Forms the main body of the souffle and gives it its savoury flavour.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they lighten the mixture and help it rise in the oven.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set into a firm but tender texture.
Cooked rice
Adds body and helps the mixture hold together while it is pounded and baked.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, giving the souffle a softer, smoother texture.

The step that matters

Gently mix in the whipped egg whites. Whipped egg whites trap air that makes the souffle rise. Folding them in gently preserves that air; vigorous stirring deflates the foam and leaves a dense result.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Turmericfits about as well

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