Name: Baked Omelet with Greens
Ingredients: 1 cup liquid (milk, cream, water, soup stock, vegetable juice, or a mixture of these); 4 eggs; 1 teaspoon lemon juice or vinegar; 1 quart or 1 pound spinach, kale, Swiss chard, or other greens; 1 cup butter or other fat; 1 cup flour; 1 teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon pepper

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Baked Omelet with Greens

Ingredients

1 cup liquid (milk, cream, water, soup stock, vegetable juice, or a mixture of these)
4 eggs
1 teaspoon lemon juice or vinegar
1 quart or 1 pound spinach, kale, Swiss chard, or other greens
1 cup butter or other fat
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper

Directions

Wash the greens thoroughly, then boil them in the least amount of water until tender, about 20 to 25 minutes. Drain and chop finely.
Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour, and cook for about one minute.
Gradually add the liquid while stirring constantly, cooking until the mixture is smooth and thick.
Stir in the chopped greens and the egg yolks, along with the lemon juice or vinegar, mixing well.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lemon + spinachtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,109 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,400 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Spinach + flourtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,564 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the spinach

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

Asparagusfits about as well
Shallotfits about as well
Capsicumfits about as well
Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, lemon, butter, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.