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Spanish Omelette

A Spanish omelette with tomato, mushrooms, ham, and spices served on buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,719 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Spanish Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a deep frying pan, melt the butter and mix in the browned flour to make a sauce.

  2. When hot, stir in the canned tomato, sliced mushrooms, and minced ham.

  3. Season with red pepper, onion juice, and coarse sea salt, then let it simmer for 8 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the beaten eggs and mix carefully as it thickens.

  2. Once the eggs are set, serve the omelette on buttered toast.

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. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when heated, thickening the mixture and giving the omelette its body.
Browned flour
Thickens the butter into a sauce and adds a toasty, nutty flavour.
Canned tomato
Provides moisture and acidity that give the sauce its body and bright flavour.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a firm, meaty texture.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture that softens as they simmer.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten eggs and mix carefully as it thickens. Egg proteins set when heated and can scramble or curdle if the heat is too high or stirring is rough, so gentle mixing keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, mushroom, ham, pepper, onion, 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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