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Flaming Omelette

A flaming omelette made with eggs, powdered sugar, butter, and rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and rum are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,007 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Flaming Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Break the eggs and beat the whites and yolks separately.

  2. Add the powdered sugar to the yolks and stir the whites and yolks together lightly.

Cook the omelette

  1. Heat the butter in a clean frying pan until it begins to boil.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and lift one side for a minute.

  3. Allow the unset mixture to run to the other side and detach the omelette from the pan with a spoon.

  4. When partly set, shake the pan gently to loosen it and turn it half over with a cake turner.

Serve flaming

  1. Slip the omelette onto a hot dish, dust with sugar, and pour warmed rum over it.

  2. Set it alight and serve flaming.

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 + rumtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,007 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into the structure of the omelette as they cook, giving it body and tenderness.
Butter
Fats the pan so the omelette releases and adds richness to the surface.
Powdered sugar
Adds gentle sweetness and helps the surface brown lightly.
Rum
Adds flavour and, when warmed and lit, creates the flaming effect on top.

The step that matters

Heat the butter until it begins to boil, then pour in the eggs. The pan must be hot enough that the egg sets quickly on contact. If it is too cool, the omelette soaks up butter and cooks slowly and tough; the moment of setting determines whether it folds cleanly.

“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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