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Souffle De Merlan

A light fish souffle made with whiting, butter, milk, flour, egg yolks, and stiffened egg whites, seasoned with anchovy essence, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Whiting and anchovy share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 82 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Souffle De Merlan

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Pound the whiting in a mortar until very fine.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan, mix in the flour, add the milk, and stir until it boils.

  3. Cook until thick and the mixture leaves the bottom and sides of the pan.

  4. Remove from heat and let it cool, then add it to the fish in the mortar.

  5. Pound well together, adding the egg yolks gradually.

  6. Season with salt, pepper, and anchovy essence.

Assemble and cook

  1. Whip the egg whites until very stiff, then stir lightly into the mixture.

  2. Prepare a buttered souffle tin and tie a band of buttered paper around the top.

  3. Turn the mixture into the prepared mold and steam or bake for about 30 to 40 minutes.

  4. Once cooked, remove the paper, serve immediately, and accompany with a fish sauce.

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. Whiting + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Whiting
Provides the main body and flavour of the souffle, pounded fine to form a smooth base.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiffness, they trap air so the souffle rises and becomes light.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and add richness and binding to the fish mixture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a sauce that gives the mixture structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps form the thickened base with the flour.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the thick base, adding moisture and softness.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whites must be whipped until very stiff and stirred in lightly. Overmixing deflates the air bubbles, so the souffle loses its rise and becomes dense.

“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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