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Cod Fish Soufflé

A baked soufflé made with cod, cream, fish stock, eggs, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cod Fish Soufflé

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Pound the codfish in a mortar and rub it through a fine sieve.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan, stir in the flour, and mix over low heat for several minutes without browning.

  3. Moisten the mixture with fish stock and stir until smooth.

Make the soufflé mixture

  1. Return the pounded fish to the mortar, add the butter-flour mixture, and mix thoroughly.

  2. Work in the eggs one at a time, then gradually add the cream, seasoning with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and cayenne or paprika.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered soufflé dish, cover with greased paper, and steam or bake for about 40 minutes.

  2. Turn out onto a hot dish and serve with tomato or anchovy 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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Codfish
Forms the main body of the soufflé and gives it its flavour and texture.
Eggs
Set during cooking to give the soufflé its structure and lift.
Flour
Cooked with butter, it thickens the base so the mixture holds together.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mixture soft and smooth.
Fish stock
Loosens the butter-flour paste and adds savoury depth.

The step that matters

Work in the eggs one at a time. Adding eggs gradually lets each one blend fully into the base, keeping the mixture smooth. Eggs added too fast or into a very hot base can scramble or curdle, and the soufflé then rises poorly.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, fish, egg, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, fish, egg, butter, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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