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Plain Omelet

A lightly beaten egg mixture cooked in butter, seasoned with pepper and salt, and optionally flavored with herbs or meats.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Plain Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the plain omelet

  1. Take six eggs, leaving out the whites of two.

  2. Beat them very lightly, and strain them through a sieve.

  3. Add pepper and salt to taste.

  4. Divide two ounces of fresh butter into little bits, and put it into the egg.

  5. Have ready a quarter of a pound of butter in a frying-pan, or a flat stew-pan.

  6. Place the pan on hot coals, and have the butter boiling when you put in the beaten egg.

  7. Fry gently until a light brown on the underside. Do not turn it while cooking.

  8. You may brown the top by holding a hot shovel over it.

  9. When done, lay it in the dish, double it in half, and stick sprigs of curled parsley over it.

Vary the filling

  1. Mix some parsley or sweet herbs minced fine, some chopped celery, or chopped onion with the beaten egg.

  2. Alternatively, season with veal kidney or sweet-bread minced; with cold ham shredded finely; or with minced oysters (hard part omitted); or with tops of asparagus previously boiled, cut into small pieces.

  3. Use a pan made specifically for omelets.

Make the soufflé omelet

  1. Break eight eggs, separate whites from yolks, and strain them.

  2. Put whites into one pan, yolks into another, and beat separately with rods until yolks are very thick and smooth, and whites a stiff froth.

  3. Add gradually to the yolks three quarters of a pound of the finest powdered loaf-sugar, and orange-flower water or lemon-juice to taste.

  4. Stir the whites lightly into the yolks.

  5. Butter a deep pan or dish that has been previously heated, and pour the mixture rapidly into it.

  6. Set it in a Dutch oven with coals under it, and on the top, and bake it five minutes.

  7. If well made, turn the omelette soufflé out on a dish.

Serve

  1. Do not begin to make an omelette soufflé until the company at table have commenced their dinner.

  2. The whole must be accomplished as quickly as possible.

  3. Serve immediately, or it will fall and flatten.

  4. Send it round with a spoon.

  5. If you live in a large town, hire a French cook to make and bake the omelette soufflé himself while the first part of the dinner progresses in the dining-room.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

230Calories
8 gProtein
17 gFat
12 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Leslie. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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

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

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a structure when cooked, forming the body of the omelet and the soufflé's rise.
Butter
Fries the egg for browning and adds richness and a rich, buttery flavor.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the soufflé mixture and helps stabilise the beaten yolks.

The step that matters

Stir the whites lightly into the yolks, then bake at once. Beaten whites hold air that makes the soufflé rise; overmixing knocks the air out, and a soufflé left to wait loses its height and falls as the trapped steam escapes.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, pepper. 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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