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French Bean Omelette

A simple omelette made with French beans, flour, milk, Parmesan cheese, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

French Bean Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix the French Beans, Flour, Milk, Parmesan Cheese, and salt until well combined.

  2. Heat the butter in an omelette pan over medium heat.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into the pan and cook until the omelette is pale brown.

  2. Serve hot.

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

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

  2. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs (in the method)
Not listed in the record, so not included.
Flour
Thickens the batter slightly and gives the omelette a softer, more set body.
Milk
Adds moisture and tenderness, keeping the omelette softer as it cooks.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavour and browns in the pan, adding aroma to the omelette.
French beans
Provide the main vegetable texture and body throughout the omelette.
Butter
Adds richness and helps brown the surface of the omelette in the pan.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into the pan and cook until pale brown. Medium heat sets the egg-free batter gradually; too high a heat scorches the outside before the centre sets, while too low leaves it pale and soggy.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, parmesan cheese, butter):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Beansthe original
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, parmesan cheese, butter. 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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