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Lyonnaise Omelette

A French-style omelette with sautéed onions and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Lyonnaise Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and finely chop the onion.

Make the omelette

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat and sauté the onion until tender and golden brown.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs until mixed, then stir in the cooked onion.

  3. Pour the egg mixture into the skillet and cook until the edges are set but the center is still slightly soft.

  4. Fold the omelette in half and serve immediately.

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. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Onion + eggtop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,333 recipes

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

Onion and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,333 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

Eggs
Set to form the omelette's structure while staying tender and moist.
Onion
Sweetens and adds savory flavor and texture when softened and browned in butter.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavor of the onion as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg mixture. Eggs turn rubbery if cooked too long or on too high heat. Removing the pan when the edges are set but the center is still slightly soft keeps the omelette tender, since the center continues to firm as it rests.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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