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Spanish Eggs

A tomato and onion omelette served with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Spanish Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. In a pan, stew the chopped tomatoes and onions until tender, then season to taste.

Make the omelette

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs well.

  2. In a separate pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  3. Pour the beaten eggs into the pan and cook until ready to turn.

  4. Add the tomato and onion mixture to the eggs and fold as an omelet.

Serve

  1. Serve with toast.

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. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Onion + eggtop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,333 recipes

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

Onion and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,333 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
Set into the omelette structure and bind the filling together.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that brighten the filling.
Onions
Add sweetness and body to the filling as they soften.
Butter
Adds richness and helps keep the eggs from sticking in the pan.

The step that matters

Cook the eggs until ready to turn. Eggs set quickly over medium heat. If they cook too long, they become dry and tough, and if they are too wet when folded, the filling can leak out and the omelette can break.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, egg, 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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