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Lentil Omelet

A savory omelet made with eggs, lentils, cream, butter, and seasoned with pepper and salt, served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lentil Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and season with pepper and salt.

  2. Beat the eggs well, then add the cooked lentils and cream.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt the butter in an omelet pan over medium heat.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and cook, shaping it into an omelet.

  3. Serve the omelet with tomato sauce.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Lentils + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together463 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Pepper + lentilstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set to form the omelet's structure as they cook and coagulate.
Lentils
Add body, texture and protein-rich bulk to the egg mixture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the cooked eggs tender rather than dry.
Butter
Fat that prevents sticking and adds richness and flavor to the omelet's surface.

The step that matters

Pour the egg mixture into the pan and cook, shaping it into an omelet.. Eggs cook quickly over medium heat and turn rubbery if overcooked. Keep the heat moderate and stop cooking while the surface is still slightly moist, so the omelet stays tender.

Swap the lentils

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Lentilsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, cream, butter, tomato, sauce. 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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