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 ↓
Meat Soufflé
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the base
Make a smooth white sauce by melting the butter, adding flour, and gradually whisking in the milk.
Season the sauce with chopped parsley and onion juice.
While hot, add the beaten yolks of the eggs and the chopped meat, then boil for one minute.
Bake and serve
When cool, gently fold in the well-beaten egg whites.
Pour the mixture into a buttered dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for twenty minutes.
Serve immediately, optionally with mushroom sauce.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together25,843 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,675 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Egg whites
- Whisked whites trap air, which expands in the oven and makes the soufflé rise and turn light.
- Egg yolks
- Yolks thicken the warm sauce and add richness and structure as the mixture sets.
- Flour
- Flour cooked into the butter forms a thickened white sauce that gives the soufflé its body.
- Butter
- Butter forms the roux with flour and adds fat for flavour and a tender texture.
- Milk
- Milk makes the liquid base of the white sauce, adding moisture and softness.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be gently folded, not stirred, and added only once the base has cooled. Deflating the whisked air or cooking the base too hot causes the soufflé to rise poorly.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, egg, meat, parsley):
- Shallotfits better
- Potatofits better
- Leekfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, egg, meat, parsley. 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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