Skip to main content
Breakfast

Omelette Souffle

A light, airy omelette made by folding beaten egg whites into yolk mixture, flavored with citrus zest.

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

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 Souffle

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. Separate the egg whites and yolks into two pans.

  2. Grate a little lemon peel or orange flowers.

  3. Beat the yolks well, then add sugar and salt.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

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

Cook and bake

  1. Melt butter in an omelette pan over medium heat.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the pan.

  3. Cook until the bottom is firm enough to hold the liquid.

  4. Carefully turn the omelette onto a serving dish.

  5. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until well risen.

  6. Glaze the top and 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. 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 whipped to stiff peaks trap air for lift, and yolks add richness and set structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps stabilise the beaten egg whites.

The step that matters

Folding the beaten egg whites into the yolk mixture. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the whipped whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the omelette dense instead of light and risen.

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.

More omelette soufflé recipes

Sweet 3 See all 114 →

You might also like

Rice GruelRice Gruel28 recipesPeptoned Milk GruelPeptoned Milk Gruel9 recipes