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Omelette Souffle

A light, airy egg dish baked with milk, corn starch, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Omelette Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Separate the egg whites and yolks, beating them separately until very light.

Make the batter

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter in the milk over low heat. Once melted, mix in the corn starch.

  2. Combine the milk mixture with the yolks and add salt to taste.

  3. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish and bake for 15 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Corn + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together349 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 soufflé its light, risen structure; yolks add richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the yolks and starch thicken into a smooth custard.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture so it can hold the folded egg whites without collapsing.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the milk base and greases the dish so the soufflé releases cleanly.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Egg white foam is full of trapped air that gives the soufflé its rise. Stirring or deflating it vigorously knocks out those bubbles, so the soufflé bakes flat and dense.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Lima beansfits about as well
  2. Almondfits about as well
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, corn, 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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