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Tomato Omelet

A tomato-based omelet cooked with onions, spices, bread crumbs, and eggs.

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 Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomato base

  1. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes to remove the skin.

  2. Chop the tomatoes finely.

  3. Place the chopped tomatoes in a saucepan without water.

  4. Chop the onions very finely.

  5. Add the chopped onions to the saucepan.

  6. Cover the saucepan closely and let it simmer slowly for 1 hour.

  7. Add salt, cayenne pepper, and bread crumbs to the saucepan.

  8. Cover the saucepan tightly.

Make the omelet

  1. Beat the eggs until stiff.

  2. Stir the beaten eggs into the tomato mixture.

  3. Heat a pan and grease it with butter.

  4. Pour the mixture into the pan.

  5. Brown the mixture on one side.

  6. Fold the omelet over.

  7. Serve the omelet on a hot dish.

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. Tomato + oniontop 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

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main bulk and moisture of the filling, cooking down into a sauce.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften during slow simmering.
Eggs
Beaten and stirred in, they set when cooked to bind the filling into an omelet.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid from the tomatoes and help thicken the mixture.

The step that matters

Simmering the tomato base. The tomatoes and onions must cook slowly and covered until soft and reduced, so the filling is thick enough to set with the eggs rather than leaving the omelet watery.

Swap the onion

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

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

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