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Souffle De Volaille

A light, airy chicken souffle made with butter, eggs, cream, and seasonings, steamed and served with a white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Souffle De Volaille

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Pound the chicken in a mortar or pass it twice through a fine mincer.

  2. Gradually add 3 ounces of butter, 4 egg yolks, and 2 egg whites to the chicken mixture.

  3. Season with pepper and salt, then pass through a fine sieve.

Lighten and combine

  1. Whip the remaining 2 egg whites to stiff peaks and half whip the cream.

  2. Gently fold the whipped egg whites and cream into the chicken mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam gently in a mold for 45 minutes.

  2. Turn out and serve with a white sauce made from butter, flour, milk, chicken stock, and a little cream.

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

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

  2. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main body of the soufflé once pounded and pureed into a smooth base.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and bind the mixture, while whipped whites set and give structure as they cook.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lifts the soufflé as it steams.
Double cream
Adds moisture and richness, and whipped partly, it lightens the texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture in the chicken base.

The step that matters

Gently folding the whipped egg whites and cream into the chicken mixture. Whipped egg whites and cream hold trapped air that gives the soufflé its lift. Stirring vigorously knocks this air out, so the soufflé steams up dense instead of light.

“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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