Skip to main content
Breakfast

How to Make an Omelet

A quick egg dish cooked in a pan with butter, salt, pepper, and optional herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

How to Make an Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and beat them until the whites and yolks are well combined.

  2. If desired, add 1 tablespoon of cream or milk for every 3 eggs to make the omelet lighter.

  3. Season the eggs with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and chopped herbs if using.

Cook the omelet

  1. Heat a clean omelet pan over medium heat and rub the pan with coarse salt to clean.

  2. Add 1 ounce of fresh butter to the pan and let it melt until hot but not burning.

  3. Pour the eggs into the hot pan and shake the handle while stirring gently with a spatula.

  4. Stir more quickly as the eggs begin to set.

  5. Tilt the pan to shape the omelet and allow it to brown slightly.

  6. Slide the omelet onto a hot dish immediately.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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
Set into a delicate structure as they heat, forming the body of the omelet.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor and keeps the eggs from sticking to the pan.
Cream or milk
Dilutes the eggs slightly, making the omelet lighter and more tender.

The step that matters

Stir more quickly as the eggs begin to set. Eggs set quickly once heated. Stirring keeps the curds small and tender; if the eggs are left still, they become tough and rubbery.

“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.

More omelette recipes

Cheese 71Ham 64French 61Sweet 59Herb 54Bread 49 See all 137 →

You might also like

Rice GruelRice Gruel28 recipesPeptoned Milk GruelPeptoned Milk Gruel9 recipes