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Oyster-Crab Omelet

A savory omelet folded over a buttery oyster crab mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and crab work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 812 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Oyster-Crab Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the crab sauce

  1. Roll the butter into small balls and dredge with flour.

  2. Place the butter in a pan and melt without browning.

  3. Add hot water and simmer until thick.

  4. Stir in the oyster crabs, salt, and cayenne.

Make and serve the omelet

  1. Beat the eggs thoroughly and prepare an omelet.

  2. Just before folding the omelet, add the crab mixture and serve.

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 + crabtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Oyster + crabtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together95 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Butter
Melts with flour to form a roux that thickens the liquid into a sauce.
Flour
Combines with melted butter and hot water to thicken the crab sauce.
Eggs
Set when cooked to form the structure of the omelet.
Oyster crabs
Provide the main seafood flavor and texture in the filling.

The step that matters

Melt the butter without browning. Browned butter changes the flavor and color of the sauce. Gentle melting keeps the butter and flour mixture pale and lets it thicken smoothly when hot water is added.

“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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