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Chicken Souffle

A steamed dish of minced chicken mixed with breadcrumbs, cream, eggs, and seasonings, baked in a greased mold.

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 ↓

Chicken Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a bowl, combine the minced chicken, bread crumbs, cream, salt, black pepper, cayenne, and lemon juice.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

Fold and steam

  1. Gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased mold and cover with greased paper.

  3. Steam over gently boiling water for 40 to 50 minutes (20 to 25 minutes for individual servings).

Serve

  1. Unmold and serve with asparagus or Béchamel 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. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  4. Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg whites trapped in the mixture give the souffle its light, airy structure when set.
Minced chicken
Provides the main body and protein structure of the souffle.
Soft bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help keep the souffle tender and bound.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the texture soft and delicate.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air that gives the souffle its rise. Folding gently keeps that air in, while stirring or overmixing deflates the batter and leads to a dense result.

“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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