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Savoury Omelet

A cooked egg mixture with cream, spices, leek or onion, suet, and butter, folded and served on a napkin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Savoury Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the eggs until very light.

  2. Add cream, white pepper, cayenne pepper, salt, leek or onion, and suet.

  3. Melt butter in a frying pan and pour in the mixture.

  4. Cook slowly until it is a fine light brown.

  5. Fold the omelet and serve on a napkin.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Pepper + leektop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together848 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cream + leektop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together158 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into the structure of the omelette as they cook, giving it body and a tender texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for cooking the eggs and helps the surface brown.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the eggs tender rather than dry.
Suet
Adds fat and richness to the omelette's texture.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until it is a fine light brown. Egg proteins set at moderate heat, so cooking slowly keeps the omelette tender and evenly coloured. High heat toughens the eggs and can scorch the bottom before the centre sets.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, pepper, leek, 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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