Skip to main content
Main

Omelette Souffle

A light, airy omelette made by folding beaten egg whites into yolk mixture and cooking over butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Omelette Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Break the eggs and separate the whites from the yolks.

  2. Add the sugar and orange flower water to the yolks and mix well.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the yolk mixture.

Cook the omelette

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat until it hisses.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the pan, moving it constantly to mix with the butter.

  3. Shape the omelette with a knife and avoid letting it get too firm.

Finish

  1. Dust the omelette with castor sugar and brown it slightly with a salamander.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Orange + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,301 recipes

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

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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
Beaten whites trap air for a light, risen texture, while yolks add richness and set the body of the omelette.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, when dusted on top, caramelizes under heat for a browned finish.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour and helps keep the omelette from sticking to the pan while it cooks.
Orange flower water
Adds a delicate floral aroma that flavours the yolk mixture.

The step that matters

Keep the omelette from getting too firm. Egg proteins tighten as they cook, and overcooking squeezes out moisture, making the omelette dry and tough instead of soft and tender. Shaping it while still slightly soft keeps it light.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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.

More omelette soufflé recipes

Sweet 3 See all 114 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes