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Plain Omelet

A fluffy omelet made with eggs, milk, cornstarch, baking powder, salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Plain Omelet

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and the yolks until smooth.

  2. Add the milk, cornstarch, baking powder, salt, and pepper to the yolks and mix well.

  3. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a good amount of butter in a frying pan over medium heat until it hisses.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and cook for about 10 minutes without stirring.

  3. As the omelet sets, use a broad knife to prevent it from burning.

  4. When nicely browned, roll the omelet onto a hot dish and 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites trap air for lift while yolks add richness and set the structure of the omelet.
Milk
Adds moisture and tenderness to the omelet as it cooks.
Cornstarch
Helps the omelet stay tender and soft by thickening the egg mixture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking to make the omelet rise and lighten.
Butter
Adds richness and helps brown the surface of the omelet in the pan.

The step that matters

Cooking the omelet without stirring. Stirring breaks the forming set of egg proteins and deflates the air from the folded whites. Letting it set undisturbed keeps the omelet light and gives it an even, browned base.

“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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