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Bacon Omelet

A baked omelet with bacon, onions, green chilies, flour, milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bacon Omelet

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Mince the bacon finely and place it in a pie dish.

  3. Bake the bacon for a few minutes.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks.

  2. Add the flour, onion, green chillies, milk, and salt to the yolks.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  4. Fold the beaten whites into the yolk mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter over the bacon in the dish.

  2. Bake for 20 minutes.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Onion + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 give the omelet its light, airy structure, and the yolks add richness.
Flour
Thickens the batter so it holds its shape around the bacon and onion.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, helping the batter set into a tender custard.
Lean bacon
Provides savory, salty flavor and fat that bakes into the dish.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it cooks into the batter.

The step that matters

Fold the beaten whites into the yolk mixture. Folding gently keeps the air in the whipped egg whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the omelet dense instead of light and puffed.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, milk):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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