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Spanish Omelet

A Spanish omelet with onion, tomato pulp, green peppers, eggs, and a spicy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Spanish Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the onion in melted butter until light brown.

  2. Thicken with a little flour or cornstarch.

  3. Gradually add the strained tomato pulp and chopped green peppers.

  4. Season with salt and Tabasco sauce.

Make and serve the omelet

  1. Beat together the eggs, water, salt, and pepper.

  2. Cook in a buttered omelet pan.

  3. Spread some sauce over the omelet when brown, fold, and serve with the remaining sauce.

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

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 a structure that holds the omelet together when cooked.
Strained tomato pulp
Forms the body of the sauce and adds moisture and acidity.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the onion brown in the sauce and the omelet pan.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and sweetness as it browns in butter.
Flour or cornstarch (in the method)
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the omelet.

The step that matters

Thicken with a little flour or cornstarch. Starch must be dispersed evenly and cooked through, or the sauce stays lumpy or tastes raw. Adding it gradually to the hot sauce helps it thicken smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

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

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