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Omelet Souffl^e Another Way

A light, airy omelet soufflé flavored with lemon peel and vanilla or rum, cooked in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Omelet Souffl^e Another Way

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Crack the eggs into a bowl, adding sugar.

  2. Stir until the mixture swells up.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  4. Fold the whites into the yolk mixture.

  5. Add lemon peel and vanilla or rum.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt butter in a frying pan.

  2. Pour the batter into the pan.

  3. Cook until the bottom is brown and the top is still liquid.

  4. Fold the omelet.

  5. Serve on a long dish.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 when beaten, giving the omelet its light, puffed structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the egg mixture hold its foam.
Butter
Fat that browns the bottom of the omelet and adds flavor in the pan.
Lemon peel
Contributes fragrant citrus aroma to the batter.

The step that matters

Cook until the bottom is brown and the top is still liquid. Egg foams set with heat, so overcooking collapses the air structure and toughens the eggs. Stopping while the top is still moist keeps the soufflé-like texture while the bottom browns.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, vanilla, butter):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, vanilla, butter. 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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