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Chicken Souffles

A baked chicken soufflé with ham, butter, flour, stock, eggs, lemon juice, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Chicken Souffles

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 base

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Finely chop the chicken and ham.

  3. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in the flour.

  4. Add the stock and bring to a boil.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolks.

  6. Add the chopped meats, seasoning, and lemon juice.

Bake and serve

  1. Gently fold in the stiffly whipped egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into well-buttered ramekin cases.

  3. Sprinkle brown breadcrumbs on top.

  4. Bake for 15 minutes.

  5. 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 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. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the base, and whipped whites lift the mixture to give the soufflé its airy rise.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a sauce that holds the chopped meats and supports the risen structure.
Butter
Forms the fat base with the flour, adding richness and flavour to the sauce.
Chicken
Provides the main savoury filling that gives the soufflé its flavour and body.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the stiffly whipped egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the whites. Stirring or deflating them loses volume, so the soufflé will rise less and turn dense when baked.

“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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