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Herb or Onion Omelet

A light omelet made with eggs, milk, flour, butter, herbs or onion tops, salt, and pepper.

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 ↓

Herb or Onion Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Separate the egg whites and yolks.

  2. Beat the yolks, then add the milk, melted butter, and flour to form a paste.

  3. Mix in the chopped herbs, salt, and pepper.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gently fold them into the yolk mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a hot, well-buttered frying pan.

  2. Stir gently with a flat knife until it thickens, being careful not to scrape the pan.

  3. Fold one half of the omelet over 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Eggs
Whites trapped by whipping give the omelet its light, airy structure, and the yolks set it richly.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the omelet tender rather than dry.
Flour
Thickens the yolk paste slightly, helping the omelet hold together when folded.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and helps prevent the omelet from sticking to the pan.

The step that matters

Folding the whipped whites into the yolk mixture. Whites hold air only when whipped stiff and deflate if overmixed. Folding gently keeps the air in, so the omelet stays light instead of flat and dense.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, butter, pepper. 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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