Skip to main content
Main

Sardine Souffles

A light, baked dish of sardines folded into a thickened milk and flour base with beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Sardine Souffles

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and stir well.

  3. Pour in the milk.

  4. Stir until boiling and cook until very thick.

  5. Cool the mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the boned and chopped sardines and the egg yolk.

  2. Beat the egg whites until very stiff.

  3. Season the mixture.

  4. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the mixture.

  5. Immediately bake in small greased ramekin cases for about 10 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

  6. Serve immediately.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + milktop 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 until stiff, they trap air and lift the mixture into a light, risen soufflé.
Butter
Fat that is melted with flour to form the roux that thickens the base.
Flour
Forms a roux with the butter that thickens the milk into a stable base.
Milk
Liquid that is cooked with the roux until thick, forming the creamy base.
Sardines
Provide the main fish flavour and savoury richness throughout the soufflé.
Egg yolk
Enriches the base and helps set the soufflé as it bakes.

The step that matters

Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the mixture. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whites intact. Overmixing deflates them, so the soufflé will not rise well in the oven.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes