Skip to main content
Main

Omelet Souffle

A light, airy omelet made by whisking egg whites into a milk‑flour mixture and cooking in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Omelet Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Separate the egg whites and yolks.

  2. In a bowl, mix the milk (or cream) with flour until smooth.

  3. Add the beaten egg whites and yolks to the mixture and stir well.

Cook

  1. Heat butter in a frying pan until bubbling.

  2. Pour in the omelet mixture, gathering the sides with a knife as it cooks.

  3. Shake the pan to loosen the omelet, then turn it onto a warm platter.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Eggs
Whites trap air and set into a light, airy structure, while yolks add richness.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and tenderness, keeping the omelet soft rather than dry.
Flour
Thickens the liquid slightly so the mixture holds together and sets more evenly.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, carrying flavor and helping prevent sticking and browning.

The step that matters

Shake the pan to loosen the omelet before turning. As the base sets, it can stick to the pan and tear. Loosening it first lets the set egg release cleanly so it can be turned onto the platter intact.

“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.

More omelet souffle recipes

Sweet 7 See all 19 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes