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Oyster Omelette

A fried omelette made with chopped oysters, flour, milk, butter, eggs, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Oyster Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the oysters finely.

  2. Mix the chopped oysters with flour and enough milk to achieve a cream-like consistency.

Make the omelette

  1. Add the mixture to the melted butter and beaten eggs.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Stir in the oysters.

  4. Fry the mixture in a skillet and fold like a regular omelette.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Oysters
Provide the main savoury flavour and tender texture inside the omelette.
Eggs
Set when cooked to form the body of the omelette.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the omelette brown lightly in the pan.
Milk
Thins the oyster mixture to a cream-like consistency, adding moisture.
Flour
Thickens the oyster and milk mixture slightly so it holds together.

The step that matters

Fry the mixture in a skillet and fold like a regular omelette.. Egg proteins set quickly over moderate heat. Cooking too hot toughens and browns the eggs before the centre sets, while cooking too gently leaves them runny and hard to fold.

“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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