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Spanish Omelette

A Spanish omelette with kidney, ham, mushrooms, chili, onion, parsley, tomatoes, stock, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Spanish Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Heat olive oil or butter in a pan.

  2. Add sliced kidney, chopped ham, mushrooms, chili, onion, parsley, and bay leaf; sauté until soft.

  3. Stir in sliced tomatoes and clear stock; simmer for 30 minutes.

Make and fill the omelette

  1. In a bowl, whip egg whites and yolks together.

  2. Mix in flour, milk, salt, and pepper.

  3. Pour egg mixture into a buttered pan and cook lightly.

  4. Before folding the omelette, pour the sauce over it.

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. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

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

  2. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Olive + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,571 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Mushroom + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites and yolks set into the omelette's structure and give it a light, tender body.
Flour
Adds a little body to the egg mixture, helping it hold together when cooked.
Lamb's kidney
Provides the meaty, savoury base of the filling as it softens and releases flavour.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture to the simmered sauce that is poured over the omelette.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg mixture lightly. Egg proteins set and toughen at high heat, so cooking gently keeps the omelette tender and prevents it from turning rubbery or browning too much.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, lamb, ham, mushroom, parsley, tomato, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, lamb, ham, mushroom, parsley, tomato, egg. 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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