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Whiting Cream

A light soufflé made from whiting, flour, butter, egg yolk, milk, cream, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Whiting Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour.

  3. Add the milk.

  4. Cook until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan and forms a compact mass.

  5. Turn the mixture onto a plate to cool.

Make the soufflé mixture

  1. Pound the fish until smooth.

  2. Mix in the cooled mixture, egg, and seasoning.

  3. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

  4. Whip the cream slightly.

  5. Fold the whipped cream into the fish mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-greased soufflé mold.

  2. Cover the mold with greased paper.

  3. Steam gently for 40 to 45 minutes.

  4. Turn out the soufflé.

  5. Serve plain or with a white fish 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Whiting + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Whiting
Provides the main body and delicate flavour of the soufflé.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a base that holds the soufflé's structure.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the starting roux.
Egg yolk
Enriches the mixture and helps bind it as it sets.
Cream
Whipped and folded in to lighten the texture and add moisture.

The step that matters

Fold the whipped cream into the fish mixture. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the whipped cream. Stirring or overmixing deflates it, so the soufflé steams up less light and airy.

“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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