Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Omelet Souffle
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the syrup
Melt the butter in a 5-inch diameter pan.
In another pan, boil the sugar and orange water to make a syrup, then reduce it by half.
Make the mixture
Beat the syrup with the egg yolks.
Gently fold in the stiff egg whites.
Cook
Pour the mixture into the pan and stir for a few seconds until the underside is set.
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.
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,584 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Butter + rosetop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,922 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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 structure, while yolks add richness and body.
- Butter
- Adds fat and flavor and helps keep the base from sticking to the pan.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the dish and, boiled into a syrup, gives the mixture a smooth, stable body.
- Rose or orange flower water
- Provides a floral aroma that flavors the syrup and the finished omelette.
The step that matters
Folding in the stiff egg whites. Folding gently preserves the air bubbles in the whites. Those bubbles expand in the heat and give the soufflé its lift, so stirring or deflating them makes the result 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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