Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Omelette
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Beat the yolks and whites of the eggs separately until light.
Add a small portion of the whites to the yolks along with the flour and beat well.
Incorporate the remaining whites, warm water, and salt into the mixture.
Cook and serve
Fry in boiling butter until light brown.
Fold double and serve hot.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Whites trapped by beating add lightness, and the yolks enrich the batter.
- Flour
- Provides structure so the batter holds together when folded.
- Butter
- Fries the omelette, adding fat and browning the surface.
The step that matters
Fry in boiling butter until light brown. Butter that is hot enough sets the outside quickly and gives light browning. If the pan is too cool, the omelette soaks up fat, turns greasy and cooks unevenly.
“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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