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Spanish Omelet

A Spanish-style omelet with bacon, mushrooms, tomato, onion, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Spanish Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Fry the diced bacon in a skillet until browned.

  2. Add the chopped tomato, mushrooms, and minced onion; cook for 15 minutes.

Make the omelette

  1. In a bowl, mix salt, pepper, flour, and milk into the beaten egg yolks.

  2. Fold in the well-beaten egg whites until smooth.

  3. Heat the butter in the skillet, then pour in the egg mixture.

  4. When nearly cooked, add the tomato mixture on top, fold the omelet, 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. Mushroom + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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
Whites trapped with air give the omelette its light, puffed structure, while yolks add richness.
Bacon
Rendered fat cooks the vegetables and adds savoury, browned flavour to the filling.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the egg mixture, keeping the omelette tender.
Tomato
Adds moisture and mild acidity to the filling.
Onion
Adds aroma and sweetness as it softens in the pan.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the filling as they cook down.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only if they are well beaten and folded in gently. Overmixing deflates them, so the omelette turns dense instead of light.

Swap the onion

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

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

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