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Breakfast

Omelets

A quick fried egg mixture cooked in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Omelets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Beat the yolks of 6 eggs and the whites of 3 eggs until well combined.

  2. Add salt and water to the egg mixture and mix well.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a small, round frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Once the butter is hot, pour in the egg mixture.

  3. Shake the pan constantly while cooking until the eggs are set.

  4. 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a tender structure as they cook, forming the body of the omelet.
Butter
Fats the pan and adds richness and flavor to the eggs.
Water
Adds moisture, keeping the cooked eggs soft and tender rather than dry.

The step that matters

Shake the pan constantly while cooking. Constant movement keeps the egg proteins from setting in large curds on the hot pan bottom, giving a smooth, even texture. Stopping too early or letting the pan sit can leave the surface overcooked and tough.

“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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