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Tomato Omelette

A tomato and onion omelette cooked slowly with butter, breadcrumbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Tomato Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Parboil the onions until tender.

  2. Peel and chop the tomatoes, then add them to the onions.

  3. Stir in the bread crumbs, coarse sea salt, black pepper, and butter.

  4. Mix thoroughly and cook over low heat for at least 3 hours.

Add the eggs

  1. About 15 minutes before serving, beat the eggs and stir them into the mixture.

  2. Increase the heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the eggs are fully cooked.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when heated, binding the tomato mixture into a thick, spoonable omelette.
Tomatoes
Provide the main body, moisture and acidity that the mixture cooks down into.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and bulk as they soften into the base.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid from the tomatoes and help thicken the mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the long cooking.

The step that matters

Increase the heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the eggs are fully cooked.. Egg proteins set when heated, but stirring prevents them from clumping or scorching on the base of the pan while they firm up.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, bread, pepper, butter, 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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