Name: Hop-shoots Omelet
Ingredients: 1 handful hop-shoots or hop-sprigs; 6 large eggs; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste

Why it works: Egg and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Hop-shoots Omelet

Ingredients

1 handful hop-shoots or hop-sprigs
6 large eggs
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

Directions

Prepare the hop shoots

Wash and boil the hop‑shoots in salted water until tender.
Drain and chop the hop‑shoots finely.

Make the omelet

In a bowl, beat the eggs and season with salt and pepper.
Mix the chopped hop‑shoots with the beaten eggs.
Cook the mixture in a hot skillet until set.
Fold to form an omelet.

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.

Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Hop shoots: Add a tender, slightly bitter vegetable flavour and bulk to the omelet.
Eggs: Set when heated to form the omelet's structure and create a tender, custardy texture.

“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.