Name: Savoury Souffles
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon butter; 6 egg yolks; ½ cup warm milk; 6 tablespoons flour; to taste coarse sea salt; 3 tablespoons sour cream; 6 egg whites; crayfish, quenelles, or calf's brains (for filling)

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 ↓

Savoury Souffles

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

Beat the butter to a cream.
Stir in the egg yolks until well mixed.
Add the warm milk and flour, mixing well after each addition.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to a froth and gradually fold into the mixture.

Fill the molds

Butter some souffle molds and place a spoonful of the mixture in each.
Add a crayfish, quenelle, or small portion of brain to each mold, then cover with another spoonful of the mixture.

Bake and serve

Brush the tops with beaten egg and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden. 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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + crayfishtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together343 recipes

Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 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

Egg whites: Beaten to a froth, they trap air that expands in the oven and lifts the soufflé.
Egg yolks: Add richness and help bind the base into a smooth, stable mixture.
Flour: Thickens the base so it can hold the trapped air without collapsing.
Milk: Loosens the flour paste and adds moisture for a tender interior.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and flavor and helps the base stay smooth.
Sour cream: Adds moisture and a mild tang to the base.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten egg whites hold tiny air bubbles that expand with heat and drive the rise. Stirring or overmixing them deflates the foam, so the soufflé bakes flat and dense. Fold gently, in stages, to keep the air in the mixture.

“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.