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Omelet Souffle

A light, sweet soufflé made with eggs, lemon rind, butter, and powdered 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 ↓

Omelet Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Separate the egg whites from the yolks.

  2. Mix the yolks with powdered sugar and chopped lemon rind.

  3. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Gently fold the whipped egg whites into the yolk mixture.

Cook the omelet

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium-high heat.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and stir to combine with the butter.

  3. Strain the mixture into a buttered dish.

Finish and brown

  1. Place the dish on hot ashes and sprinkle powdered sugar on top.

  2. Carefully brown the top with a salamander or broiler.

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 give the omelet its airy structure, and the yolks add richness and body.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the pan and helps the base cook without sticking.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown when heated.
Lemon rind
Adds bright citrus aroma to the yolk mixture.

The step that matters

Fold the whipped whites gently. Whipped egg whites trap air that makes the omelet light and puffed. Stirring or pressing them hard deflates the foam, so the finished dish turns dense instead of rising.

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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