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Chicken Souffle'

A baked chicken soufflé made with cooked chicken, cream, Bechamel sauce, and folded egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Souffle'

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. Finely chop the chicken or pass it through a meat grinder.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan and add the chicken, cooking until done.

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the cooked chicken, egg yolk, cream, and Bechamel sauce.

  2. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form and gently fold them into the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) until puffed and golden.

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

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

  2. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

Butter and sauce 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 and make the soufflé rise and puff.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the chicken mixture so it sets when baked.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the chicken as it cooks.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the baked texture tender.
Bechamel sauce
Forms the creamy base that holds the chicken and binds the mixture together.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Deflating the whipped whites by stirring too hard releases the trapped air, 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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