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Cress Omelet

A light omelet made with eggs, salt, butter, and minced watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Cress Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Separate the egg whites from the yolks.

  2. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  3. Add salt and gently fold in the yolks.

  4. Prepare the minced watercress and set aside.

Cook and serve

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

  2. Pour in the egg mixture and cook for about 5 minutes, ensuring it doesn't burn.

  3. Transfer the omelet to a platter, sprinkle with watercress, fold, 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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Egg + watercresstop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Watercress + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together842 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites give the omelet its light, airy structure, while the yolks add richness and set during cooking.
Butter
Melted in the pan, it adds fat and flavor and helps keep the omelet from sticking.
Watercress
Adds a fresh, peppery flavor and a little moisture to the folded omelet.

The step that matters

Folding the yolks into the whites. Whipped egg whites hold air only when handled gently. Stirring or deflating them too much releases that air, leaving a flat, dense omelet.

“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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