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Spanish Omelet

A Spanish omelet made with eggs, salt, pepper, olive oil, onions, and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Spanish Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat.

  3. Add chopped onions and diced potatoes; cook until tender.

Cook the tortilla

  1. Pour the beaten eggs over the mixture and cook until set.

  2. Flip the omelet to cook the other side until golden brown.

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 + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Olive + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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
Set with heat into a firm structure that binds the potatoes and onions together.
Potatoes
Add body and a soft, starchy texture that makes the tortilla filling.
Onions
Turn sweet and mellow as they cook, adding flavour to the filling.
Olive oil
Conducts heat in the pan and adds fat for browning the surface.

The step that matters

Flip once the top is set. Egg proteins coagulate as they heat, forming a firm structure. Flipping before the top sets can break the tortilla and let the filling spill out, so wait until the surface is no longer runny.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, olive, potato. 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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