Skip to main content
Main

Whiting Souffle

A light, baked fish souffle made with whiting, eggs, flour, butter, milk, cream, and aromatics.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Whiting Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish stock

  1. Remove bones from the fish and place them in a saucepan with the milk, onion, and ½ cup of water. Bring to a boil.

  2. Pound the fish and pass it through a sieve.

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, stir in the flour, and cook for a few minutes without browning.

  2. Moisten the flour mixture with the fish stock, stir until it boils, and let it cook for a few minutes.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool slightly, then add the fish puree and the egg yolks one at a time. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and lemon juice.

Assemble and steam

  1. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the mixture along with the cream.

  2. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered charlotte or timbale mold, cover with buttered paper, and steam for 45 to 60 minutes, depending on the size of the mold.

  3. To serve, turn the souffle out onto a hot dish and pour over some white 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Whiting + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Whiting
Forms the light, delicate body of the soufflé as a pureed base.
Eggs
Egg whites set and trap air for lift; yolks enrich and bind the mixture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk base so it can hold the fish and air.
Butter
Enriches the roux and adds flavour and tenderness to the base.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the soufflé tender.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be beaten to stiff peaks and folded gently so the air is kept. Overmixing deflates the foam, and the soufflé then steams up flat and dense instead of light.

“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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes