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Meat or Fish Omelets

A savory omelet made with cold meat or fish, spices, and eggs, cooked in butter and served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Meat or Fish Omelets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove skin and sinew from the meat or fish and cut it small or pound it to a paste.

  2. Mix in spices and coarse sea salt.

Cook the omelet

  1. Heat butter in a frying pan over medium heat until melted.

  2. Add the meat mixture and cook until it begins to brown.

  3. Beat the eggs with milk or other liquid if using, then pour over the meat mixture.

  4. Cook until the eggs are set, then serve hot with garnishes.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a structure that holds the filling together as the omelet cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and helps keep the omelet from sticking to the pan.
Cold meat, fish, game, or poultry
Provides the savoury filling that gives the omelet its main flavour and body.
Milk, gravy, water, or white wine
Adds moisture, making the eggs softer and more tender when they set.

The step that matters

Cook until the eggs are set, then serve hot with garnishes.. Egg proteins set with heat, and overcooking squeezes out moisture, making the omelet tough and dry. Stop cooking once the surface is just set so it stays tender.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, egg, 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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