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Fish Souffle

A light fish soufflé made with butter, flour, milk, eggs, and seasonings, steamed until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Fish Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish base

  1. Remove skin and bones from the fish.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan, stir in the flour, add the milk or water, and cook until it pulls away from the pan, stirring constantly.

  3. Pound the panada, raw fish, and egg yolks together in a mortar, season well, and strain through a sieve.

Fold and steam

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and gently fold into the fish mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered souffle dish and cover with buttered paper.

  3. Steam gently for 40 minutes until firm.

Serve

  1. Invert onto a hot dish and pour a good white sauce over or around it.

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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  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

Fish
Forms the main body of the soufflé and gives it its flavor.
Eggs
Egg whites lighten the mixture and yolks help it set into a firm, tender structure.
Butter
Enriches the panada and adds richness and a smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the milk or water into a panada that supports the fish mixture.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the panada base.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten whites trap air that makes the soufflé rise and stay light. Folding gently preserves that air; stirring or deflating the whites produces a dense, heavy result.

“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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