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Beefsteak Omelet

A baked omelet made with beef steak, salt pork, soda crackers, egg, milk, butter, salt, sage, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Beefsteak Omelet

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the steak, salt pork, rolled soda crackers, egg, milk, butter, salt, sage, and pepper with your hands.

  2. Pack the mixture into a tin.

  3. Bake for 1.5 hours.

Cool and serve

  1. Allow to cool, then slice thin.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Raw steak
Forms the main body of the loaf and provides the meaty texture once cooked.
Egg
Binds the mixture so it holds together when sliced after baking.
Soda crackers
Absorb liquid and add bulk, keeping the loaf tender rather than dense.
Milk
Adds moisture so the loaf stays juicy during baking.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that keeps the meat from drying out.

The step that matters

Pack the mixture into the tin. Packing too loosely can leave gaps and cause the loaf to crumble when sliced, while overpacking can make it dense. Pressing it evenly helps it hold together and cook uniformly.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, egg, milk, butter, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, egg, milk, butter, pepper. 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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