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Chicken Souffle

A baked chicken soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, eggs, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken 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.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour, salt, and pepper.

  3. Cook for ten minutes, stirring until smooth.

  4. Cook over low heat for five minutes.

  5. Set aside to cool.

Make the soufflé base

  1. Mix the chicken with the parsley, onion juice, and the sauce.

  2. Stir in the well-beaten egg yolks.

Bake and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites until very stiff.

  2. Fold the egg whites into the chicken mixture.

  3. Pour into a buttered pudding dish or individual ramekins.

  4. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for twenty minutes.

  5. Serve immediately in the same dishes.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg whites whipped to foam lift the mixture and give the soufflé its airy rise; yolks enrich it.
Butter
Fat that is melted with the flour to form the base of the white sauce.
Flour
Cooked with butter to form a roux that thickens the milk into a stable sauce.
Milk or chicken stock
Liquid that is thickened into the sauce and carries the chicken and moisture through the mixture.
Chicken
Main filling that gives the soufflé its savoury flavour and body.

The step that matters

Fold the egg whites into the chicken mixture. Whites hold air only while stiff; overmixing or deflating them makes the soufflé dense, so fold gently with a spatula to keep the air bubbles that cause the rise in the oven.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, parsley, milk, chicken, 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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