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Fish Souffle

A steamed fish souffle made with fish, eggs, milk, butter, flour, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Fish Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tin

  1. Grease a round souffle or cake tin well.

  2. Wrap a double piece of white paper 4 inches high around the outside of the tin.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour smoothly off the heat.

  3. Add the milk.

  4. Cook the mixture for 10 minutes, stirring well and smoothly.

  5. Allow the mixture to cool.

Combine and steam

  1. Add the egg yolks and mix briskly.

  2. Beat the egg whites until very stiff.

  3. Gently fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne.

  5. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin.

  6. Steam gently for 1 hour.

  7. Ensure the water only comes halfway up the saucepan if no steamer is used.

Serve

  1. Serve 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 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. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the base, and whipped whites trap air that lifts the soufflé.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter and milk into a smooth base that holds the soufflé.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens and the eggs are mixed into.
Butter
Adds richness and, with the flour, forms the thickened base.

The step that matters

Gently fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture. Whipped egg whites hold air that makes the soufflé rise. Stirring or beating them in forcefully knocks out that air, so the soufflé comes out flat and 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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