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Sweetbread Souffle

A steamed sweetbread souffle made with bread crumbs, spices, lemon juice, cream, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Sweetbread Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Parboil the sweetbreads, then trim and cut them very fine.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, salt, pepper, cayenne, cream, and beaten egg yolks.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites until well combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture into a buttered mold, cover with greased paper, and steam over gently boiling water for 30 to 40 minutes, or 20 to 25 minutes if using individual molds.

  2. Unmold and serve with Bechamel or Asparagus 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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Sweetbreads
Provide the main body of the souffle as finely cut meat that sets into a tender texture.
Eggs
Egg whites trapped by folding give lift, while yolks help the mixture set into a light, custard-like structure.
Soft bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the mixture so it holds its shape after steaming.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the souffle tender rather than dry.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air bubbles that give the souffle its lift. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out air, while folding gently keeps the structure light so it rises and stays tender when steamed.

“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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