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English Monkey

A savory omelette made with eggs, cream, deviled ham, cheese, beer, and Tabasco sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

English Monkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the egg mixture

  1. Beat the eggs well and add the cream and deviled ham.

Cook in a chafing dish

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Add the shredded cheese and melt together.

  3. Stir in the egg, cream, and ham mixture.

  4. Add the beer and Tabasco sauce to taste.

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

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cheese + beertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

    Shared aroma: 5-ethyl-3-hydroxy-4-methyl-2(5h)-furanone (spice).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 into the body of the omelette as they cook, giving structure.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the eggs soft and tender.
Shredded cheese
Melts into the dish, adding fat, creaminess and savoury flavour.
Deviled ham
Adds salty, savoury meat flavour throughout the egg mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour and helps keep the dish from sticking.
Beer
Adds liquid and a light malty flavour to the mixture as it cooks.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the melted cheese. Over-high heat makes eggs tough and rubbery and can separate the cheese into greasy strings. Keeping the heat gentle lets the eggs set softly and the cheese stay smooth and blended.

“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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