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Omelette Souffle

A light, airy omelette made by folding beaten egg whites into a sweet yolk mixture flavored with vanilla, orange, or lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Omelette Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs.

  2. Add the sugar, rice flour, and your choice of flavouring to the yolks and stir well.

Whip the whites

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

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

Cook and serve

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

  2. Pour the mixture into the skillet and cook until set.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Vanilla + ricetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,352 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Whites trapped in whipped foam provide the airy structure, and yolks add richness and set the body.
Pounded sugar
Sweetens the dish and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the underside brown in the skillet.
Rice flour
Light starch that helps the omelette hold its shape while it sets.

The step that matters

Folding the whipped whites into the yolks. Stirring instead of folding knocks air out of the whipped whites, so the omelette turns out dense rather than light. Fold gently, cutting through the mixture, to keep the foam intact.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, rice, flour. 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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