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Puff Omelet

A light, airy omelet made by beating eggs, milk, butter, and flour, then cooking until stiff.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Puff Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs until light.

  2. Mix in the milk and salt.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and flour until smooth.

  4. Add the butter and flour mixture to the egg mixture and beat well.

Cook the omelet

  1. Pour into a buttered pan.

  2. When it begins to thicken, add the beaten egg whites.

  3. Dust with a little salt and cook until stiff.

Serve

  1. Carefully remove to a dish.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provide structure and, when whipped, air that lifts the omelet as it cooks.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the custard-like batter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a tender texture and flavor.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives it body so it holds its shape.

The step that matters

Add the beaten egg whites at the right moment. Whites beaten until stiff trap air, which expands in the heat and makes the omelet puff. Adding them once the batter begins to thicken keeps that air in the batter. If the whites are under-beaten or added too early, the omelet stays flat and 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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