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Plain Omelet

A quick egg dish cooked in butter with salt and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Plain Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl and add salt and milk.

  2. Heat a pan until very hot and add the butter.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and shake constantly until it begins to thicken.

  2. Let it stand for a few minutes to brown.

  3. Run a knife between the omelet and the pan, fold it, and turn it onto a hot dish.

  4. 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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into the structure of the omelet as they cook, forming its body.
Milk
Adds moisture that turns to steam, keeping the omelet tender rather than dry.
Butter
Greases the pan and adds richness and flavor, and helps browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Shaking the egg mixture constantly in a very hot pan. Constant shaking keeps the egg moving so small curds form evenly and the surface does not overcook before the center sets. Stopping too early leaves a runny middle, and letting it sit too long toughens the eggs.

“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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