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Fish Omelet

A savory omelet made with minced cooked fish, butter, milk, flour, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Fish Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Prepare the fish as you would for boiled salt cod, removing the bones and mincing it.

  2. Season the fish with melted butter, salt, and pepper.

Make the omelette

  1. Pour 1 pint of milk over the fish in a frying pan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Thicken with 1 tablespoon of flour mixed in cold milk.

  4. Stir in 1 or 2 beaten eggs.

  5. Serve in a covered dish.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Fish + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Set when stirred into the hot mixture, binding it and giving it a soft, tender body.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, cohesive sauce that holds the fish together.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel, carrying flavour through the dish.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens and gives the dish its creamy texture.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour mixed in cold milk. Flour must be blended into cold milk first so its starch disperses evenly; added to hot liquid directly it clumps. Starch swells and thickens as the mixture heats, so the sauce turns smooth rather than lumpy.

“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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