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Omelet Souffle

A light, airy omelette made by folding beaten egg whites into a white sauce and baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the white sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring until thickened to make a white sauce.

Make the soufflé mixture

  1. Separate the egg yolk and white; beat the yolk until light.

  2. Once the white sauce is cool, mix in the egg yolk.

  3. Beat the egg white until stiff peaks form and gently fold it into the mixture.

  4. Pour the mixture into a small buttered dish.

Bake

  1. Place the dish in a pan of hot water and bake at 400°F (200°C) until light brown.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Enriches the white sauce and adds flavor while helping the sauce stay smooth.
Flour
Thickens the milk with butter into a white sauce that gives the soufflé its base.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the white sauce, which sets into a creamy base.
Egg
Yolk enriches the base and whipped white adds air for a light, risen structure.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg white. Stiff whipped whites hold the air that lifts the soufflé. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring hard deflates the mixture and it bakes flat and dense.

“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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