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Swiss Meat Omelettes

A savory omelette made with chopped cold meat, raisins, spices, and a batter of eggs, milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Swiss Meat Omelettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped cold meat, raisins, allspice, nutmeg, coarse sea salt, lemon peel, 1 egg, sugar, and cloves.

Make the batter

  1. In another bowl, whisk together 3 eggs, milk, and flour to make a thin batter.

Cook the omelettes

  1. Heat lard in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Pour a portion of the batter into the skillet, add a spoonful of the meat mixture in the center, and fold the batter around it.

  3. Cook until golden brown on both sides.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the filling and set the thin batter into a tender, cohesive omelette.
Flour
Thickens the milk and eggs into a batter that holds the filling when folded.
Milk
Thins the batter so it spreads into a thin, pliable omelette.
Cold meat
Provides the savory, meaty filling at the heart of the dish.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy moisture to the filling.
Lard
Conducts heat and browns the outside of the omelette in the pan.

The step that matters

Cooking the folded omelettes until golden on both sides. Thin batter sets quickly and can scorch or tear if the heat is too high, so medium heat lets it set through before browning and keeps the fold intact.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, allspice, nutmeg, lemon, egg, sugar, clove):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, allspice, nutmeg, lemon, egg, sugar, clove. 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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