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Omelette Souffles

A light, airy omelette soufflé made with beaten egg whites, flavored with lemon peel or orange flowers, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 Souffles

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Break the eggs into a large bowl, separating the whites and yolks.

  2. Beat the yolks well, then add a little sugar and salt.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

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

Cook and bake

  1. Melt butter in a pan over medium heat.

  2. Pour the omelette mixture into the pan and cook until the bottom is firm.

  3. Transfer the omelette to a serving dish and bake in the oven at 350°F (175°C) until well risen.

  4. Serve immediately to prevent it from lowering.

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. Lemon + sugartop 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).

Lemon and sugar 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
Whites trap air for lift, while yolks add richness and set the structure of the omelette.
Butter
Fat for frying that gives the base a golden, richly flavoured crust.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness to the yolk mixture.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten whites. Whites hold air only as long as they stay stiff, so folding gently keeps bubbles intact. Heavy stirring deflates them, and the soufflé will rise less and fall faster.

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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