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Omelet Souffle
An omelet souffle is one of the most delicious of hot sweets. It is not difficult to make when its principles are understood, and yet it is seldom well made by inexperienced cooks. The true omelet souffle contains only eggs, sugar and the chosen flavoring and a tin-lined copper souffle-pan or a thick enameled metal dish, which will quickly heat and remain hot for some time after being taken from the oven, is required for cooking it. Spread the pan with cold butter and see that the oven is quite hot before the omelet is made. Put the yolks of three eggs, six heaped tablespoonfuls of powdered loaf sugar and one teaspoonful of any flavoring essence or cordial into a quart bowl and beat them to a stiff cream; then beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth and quickly and lightly add the yolks and sugar. This part of the operation requires a quick, deft hand. The yolks should be poured on the center of the whites, then cut down through, rather beaten or stirred, by holding the spoon in the right hand with the bowl outward and cutting down into the whites with its edge an inward and upward turn will bring the spoon out again with its edge on top of the whites. Repeat this cutting-down and turning motion rapidly and lightly until the omelet is mixed, then as rapidly and lightly put the omelet into the pan in which it is to be baked, dust it over with powdered sugar, place it in the oven and bake until it is delicately browned (it will take about ten minutes if the oven is moderately hot). Do not begin to make the souffle until about twenty minutes before it is needed. It must not be allowed to stand after it is done, but must be sent to the table as soon as taken from the oven, slipping the souffle-pan on a hot dish covered with a folded napkin.
A soufflé omelette in the French style: no flour, no dairy, nothing to hold it up but beaten whites and speed. The recipe stands or falls on how little you deflate the whites and how fast you get it from bowl to oven to table.
- The hinge: fold, don't stirThe cutting-and-turning motion described is exactly right and worth following literally. Pour the yolk-sugar mixture over the whites and cut down with the edge of a spatula, turning up from the bottom, until barely combined; streaks are preferable to a smooth, slack batter.
- Powdered loaf sugarThis is loaf (hard-cone) sugar crushed and sifted fine, closest today to caster or superfine sugar. Modern confectioners' sugar contains cornstarch and will dull the flavour and the set; use superfine, and grind granulated in a food processor if you have none.
- The sugar quantitySix heaped tablespoons to three yolks is roughly three-quarters of a cup, and by present taste the result is very sweet. Modern versions of the dish often use two to three tablespoons for three eggs; reducing it should not much harm the structure, since the whites, not the sugar, do most of the lifting.
- The panA tin-lined copper soufflé pan of this period was most likely a shallow, heavy, wide vessel rather than a tall straight-sided soufflé dish; the recipe asks only that it heat fast and hold heat. A well-buttered cast-iron or heavy enamelled skillet, or an oval gratin dish, does the same work.
- Flavouring"Any flavoring essence or cordial" would have covered things such as vanilla, orange-flower water, kirsch, maraschino or curaçao. A teaspoon of a liqueur is safe; more liquid than that will thin the yolks and cost you height.
- DonenessTen minutes gives a browned crust and a soft, almost saucelike centre, which is what is wanted. If you prefer it set through, another two minutes is the limit before it dries and collapses.
- Yield and serviceThree eggs serve two people, or one at the end of a long dinner. The instruction not to let it stand is not decoration: it begins to fall within a minute of leaving the oven, so have the hot dish and napkin ready before you start.
The omelette soufflée was a familiar closing sweet of the nineteenth-century French dining room, and its appeal was theatrical as much as gastronomic; it had to be made to order and carried at speed. Oscar Tschirky, maître d'hôtel of the Waldorf and later the Waldorf-Astoria, was not himself the chef, but his 1896 collection gathered the repertoire the house expected its cooks to command, and this entry reads like kitchen instruction rather than home advice, down to the specification of tin-lined copper. The technique belongs to the same family as other sweet omelettes such as omelette Célestine and omelette norvégienne, which likewise depend on stiffly beaten whites. The insistence on starting no more than twenty minutes before service is the point the recipe presses hardest.