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Bread Omelet

A savory dish made by baking soaked bread with onion, parsley, egg, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Bread Omelet

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Bread Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the hard bread in hot or cold water until softened, then crumble it.

  2. In a bowl, combine the soaked bread, chopped onion, parsley, egg, salt, and pepper.

Cook

  1. Heat bits of suet or beef fat in a frying pan or square baking pan.

  2. Pour the mixture into the pan, cover, and bake for 5 minutes.

  3. Uncover and brown the top, or cook slowly on the stove.

Serve

  1. Cut into pieces and serve around meat or with gravy.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard bread
Softened bread gives the omelet its body and holds the egg mixture together.
Egg
Egg binds the bread and onion and sets the mixture into a firm, sliceable cake.
Onion
Chopped onion adds moisture and savory flavor as it softens during cooking.
Suet or beef fat
Hot fat in the pan fries the surface, adding browning and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Uncover and brown the top. Covered baking traps steam and leaves the top pale and soft. Uncovering lets moisture escape so the surface browns and sets, giving a firmer crust and better flavor.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, parsley, egg, pepper, beef):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, parsley, egg, pepper, beef. 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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