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A Very Delicate Omelette

A baked omelette made with eggs, milk, butter, flour, salt, pepper, and optional vegetables or meats.

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 ↓

A Very Delicate Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and the yolks until well mixed.

  3. In a bowl, combine warm milk and melted butter.

  4. Mix flour with a little milk to form a paste, then add to the milk mixture.

  5. Stir in salt and pepper, then fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  6. If desired, add chopped onion, parsley, ham, or dried beef before folding in the egg whites.

  7. Pour the mixture into a deep, round dish or tin cake pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for about 15 minutes until cooked through, but do not let it brown too quickly.

  2. Serve immediately from the baking pan with butter.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Whipped whites trap air for lift, while yolks add richness and set the custard-like body.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the omelette tender rather than dry.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour while coating the mixture for a tender crumb.
All-purpose flour
Gives the mixture some body so it holds its shape after baking.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites, which provides the lift. Stirring hard would deflate the foam and leave a dense, flat omelette.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, butter, flour, pepper):

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

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