Skip to main content
Main

Soufflé of Calf’s Liver

A savory soufflé made from calf liver, truffles, madeira sauce, and egg yolks, baked until puffed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Truffle and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,209 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Soufflé of Calf’s Liver

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the liver

  1. Slice the calf’s liver and fry it quickly in melted fat-bacon.

  2. Season the liver, add truffle trimmings, and sprinkle with pounded aromatics. Once set, remove from heat and allow to cool.

Make the mixture

  1. Pound the remaining liver with the panada and butter until well mixed.

  2. Pass the mixture through a sieve into a bowl.

  3. Add madeira sauce, reduced meat glaze, and egg yolks one at a time.

Bake and serve

  1. Fold in the whipped egg whites gently.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered soufflé pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 25-30 minutes.

  3. 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. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Truffle + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Liver + truffletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Calf’s liver
Provides the main body and rich flavour of the soufflé base.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and add richness and setting structure to the mixture.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in to lighten the mixture and help it rise.
Panada
Binds the pounded liver so the mixture holds together smoothly.
Madeira sauce
Adds depth and sweetness that complements the liver.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air in the whites; overmixing deflates the foam, so the soufflé rises less and turns 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.

You might also like

Meat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipesMeat CakesMeat Cakes35 recipes