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Chicken Souffle

A baked chicken and egg custard thickened with butter, flour, breadcrumbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Chicken Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, cook the melted butter and flour together for 5 minutes.

  2. Stir in the breadcrumbs, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and milk.

  3. Cook until thickened, then remove from heat.

Bake

  1. Add the chopped chicken and eggs, mixing well.

  2. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered dish.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 35 minutes.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Eggs
Set the mixture into a soft, sliceable custard as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a stable base that holds the chicken.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor through the flour base.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens and gives the dish its creamy body.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb liquid and add body to the thickened base.

The step that matters

Cook until thickened, then remove from heat. The base must be thick before the eggs go in. Eggs added to a thin or overheated base can scramble or curdle, and the soufflé will not rise and set evenly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, sauce, milk, chicken, egg):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sauce, milk, chicken, egg. 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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