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Breakfast

Breakfast — Corn Cakes, Broiled Ham, Tomato Omelet

A breakfast of cornmeal cakes, broiled ham, and tomato omelet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Breakfast — Corn Cakes, Broiled Ham, Tomato Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cornmeal cakes

  1. In a bowl, mix cornmeal, milk, egg, butter, and salt until smooth.

  2. Heat a skillet and pour in batter to form small cakes.

  3. Cook until golden brown on both sides.

Cook the ham and omelet

  1. In another skillet, broil the ham until heated through.

  2. For the omelet, beat the eggs and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Cook the eggs in a skillet until set, then add sliced tomatoes and fold.

Serve

  1. Serve corn cakes with broiled ham and tomato omelet.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Milk + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Forms the base of the cakes, giving them their grainy structure and body.
Milk
Hydrates the cornmeal so the batter becomes smooth and pourable.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set the omelet, giving it structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the cakes brown in the pan.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and a bright, slightly acidic flavour to the omelet.

The step that matters

Cook the cornmeal cakes until golden brown on both sides. Cornmeal batter is thick and can stick or stay pale if the pan is not hot enough. Even heat and enough butter give browning on both sides and a crisp exterior, while the centre sets through.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, butter, ham, 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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