No. 3064

Omflet Souffle with Macaroons

Omelette Soufflee aux Macarons

Stir in a bowl six egg-yolks with a grain of salt and seven ounces of powdered sugar. The whole should get quite frothy. Pound six macaroons, and shake them through a sieve; beat up six egg-whites and mix them gradually with the former preparation, also stir in the macaroon powder at the same time. Melt three ounces of butter in a pan, and when hot pour in the omelet and toss it very slowly over the fire to heat through, then double it over, and invert it on a long buttered plated dish, and finish cooking the omelet in a slack oven. A few seconds before taking it out besprinkle bountifully with powdered vanilla sugar (No. 3165) to glaze. In order to have an omelet souffle perfect, the guest should be kept waiting.

← No. 3063 Omelet Souffle with Apples Hot Entremets — Puddings, Fritters & Soufflés No. 3065 Omelet Souffle with Preserves →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's soufflé omelet is a stovetop-then-oven affair, not a true baked soufflé, and it collapses fast. His closing line is the whole method in one sentence: assemble it only when the table is ready.

Powdered sugarIn Ranhofer, "powdered sugar" means finely milled granulated sugar — caster or superfine — not modern confectioners' sugar with its cornstarch. Seven ounces is about one cup; use caster sugar for the yolks.
The macaroonsThese are almond macaroons of the dry Italian type (amaretti or the harder French almond macaroon), not the coconut sort. Six will give perhaps half a cup or so of sifted crumbs, depending on their size; pulse in a processor, then sieve out the gritty bits as directed.
A slack ovenRoughly 275–300°F. The point is to set the inside gently without driving the eggs; a hotter oven will inflate the omelet and then drop it before it reaches the table.
Three ounces of butterThat is six tablespoons for a pan-cooked omelet — generous even by 1894 standards. Two tablespoons in a well-seasoned or nonstick pan is enough; the rest only pools and browns.
FoldingBeat the whites to soft, glossy peaks, not stiff and dry, and fold them in with the macaroon powder in two or three additions. Overworked whites give a dense, weeping omelet.
TimingsThe stovetop stage is a matter of two or three minutes over low heat, just until the base sets and the mass is warm through. The oven finish is five to eight minutes; the center should still tremble.
The glazeThe vanilla sugar goes on a few seconds before the omelet leaves the oven, to glaze the top. A broiler set high, with the dish 4–5 inches beneath it for under a minute, will do the job — watch it continuously.
The dishA "long buttered plated dish" is a silver-plated serving dish, oblong in shape, that went from oven to table. Any buttered ovenproof platter works; warm it first so the omelet does not chill on contact.
YieldSix eggs makes an omelet for four to six as a dessert course. Serve it the moment it leaves the oven — hence Ranhofer's instruction to keep the guest waiting rather than the omelet.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially his working repertoire set down in twelve hundred pages. The omelette soufflée belongs to a family of French sweet entremets that occupy a whole run of numbers in this section — with apples, with preserves, with macaroons — all variations on the same base of sweetened yolks lightened with whipped whites. The dish sits between the plain omelet and the true soufflé: it borrows the pan from one and the leavening from the other, which is why it is cooked twice, briefly on the fire and then in a cool oven. Almond macaroons were a standard pastry-kitchen staple in the period, kept dry in tins and pounded as needed for flavoring creams, ices and puddings, so calling for six of them assumed a supply already at hand. Ranhofer's parting remark about keeping the guest waiting is the only real technique in the recipe, and it reflects the service culture of a restaurant where courses were fired to order rather than held.