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Omelette Souffle

A light, airy omelette made by folding whipped egg whites into yolk mixture, then frying and glazing with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Omelette Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Separate the whites from the yolks of the eggs, removing any specks.

  2. Add the sugar and lemon juice to the yolks and mix well.

  3. Whip the egg whites until firm, then gently fold them into the yolk mixture.

Cook

  1. Melt a small piece of butter in a frying pan over low heat.

  2. Pour the omelette mixture into the pan, being careful not to burn it.

Finish and serve

  1. Turn the omelette out onto a dish and sprinkle sugar over it to glaze.

  2. Place the dish in the oven until it rises, glaze it again, and serve.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Whipped whites trap air for a light, risen structure, while yolks add richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the omelette and forms a glaze on the surface.
Lemon juice
Acidity helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
Butter
Fat for frying that adds flavour and helps prevent sticking.

The step that matters

Fold the whipped whites gently into the yolk mixture. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whipped whites. Stirring or beating them down deflates the foam, which leaves the omelette dense rather than soufflé-like.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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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