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Woodcock-and-Truffle Souffles

A souffle made with roasted woodcock, rice, truffles, Madeira wine, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Truffle and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,209 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Woodcock-and-Truffle Souffles

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather slack oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the woodcock

  1. Separate the flesh from the bones of cold roasted woodcocks and trim off skin and sinewy parts.

  2. In a mortar, combine the flesh with cold cooked rice and pound until smooth.

  3. Add sauce and pass the mixture through a fine sieve into a saucepan.

  4. Prepare broth with the bones and trimmings, sieve it, thicken with sauce, and reduce to half glaze.

Make the soufflé base

  1. Boil chopped truffles in Madeira wine, then add to the woodcock puree.

  2. Mix in the sauce, beaten egg yolks, and a small piece of butter.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then fold in the whipped egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a souffle pan, pour in the mixture, and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve immediately after cooking.

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. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  3. Truffle + madeira winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together195 recipes
  4. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 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

Woodcock flesh
Provides the main savory body and flavour of the soufflé base.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and add richness and smooth texture.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in to trap air, lifting the soufflé as it bakes.
Cold cooked rice
Helps bind and thicken the pounded woodcock flesh into a smooth puree.
Chopped truffles
Add a concentrated earthy aroma that perfumes the whole soufflé.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Egg whites must be folded gently so the air bubbles stay intact; overmixing deflates the batter and 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.

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