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Souffle of Chickens a LA Creme

A baked chicken soufflé made with roasted chicken, béchamel, butter, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Souffle of Chickens a LA Creme

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Remove the white flesh from the roasted chickens and mince it finely.

  2. Pound the minced chicken in a mortar with Bechamel, butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. Mix in the yolks of four eggs.

  4. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

Bake and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the chicken mixture.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a soufflé dish or a raised pastry crust.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15-20 minutes, ensuring the oven is not too 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.

  1. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts the soufflé as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help it set into a tender, custard-like texture.
Roasted chicken
Provides the main body and savoury flavour of the soufflé.
Bechamel sauce
Adds moisture and body, keeping the chicken mixture smooth and binding it.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiff whites hold the air that makes the soufflé rise. Overmixing deflates them, so fold gently and only until no white streaks remain, then bake promptly.

“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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