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French Omelet

A fluffy omelet made with milk, bread crumbs, eggs, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

French Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Melt the butter in the boiling milk.

  2. Pour the milk mixture over the bread crumbs.

  3. Add salt, pepper, and the beaten egg yolks; mix thoroughly.

Cook the omelet

  1. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Heat hot butter in a pan and pour in the mixture.

  3. Cook until almost done, then fold into a half-moon shape.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the omelet a light, airy structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the mixture as they set during cooking.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the hot milk and butter, adding body and moisture to the omelet.
Milk
Adds moisture and softens the bread crumbs into a smooth base.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Whipped egg whites hold air that gives the omelet its lightness. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, so the omelet turns dense and flat instead of airy.

“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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