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Cheese Omelet

A quick egg dish with cheese, cayenne, and cream, cooked in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the eggs

  1. Beat the eggs until very light.

  2. Add cayenne, salt, cream, and baking soda.

Cook and serve

  1. In an omelet pan, heat the butter.

  2. Stir in the grated cheese with a few rapid strokes.

  3. Cook immediately until set.

  4. Serve right away to avoid a clammy texture.

  5. Optionally, add more cheese on top and briefly hold a hot spoon near it to melt.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 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
Their proteins set when heated, forming the structure of the omelette.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the set eggs tender rather than dry.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour and helps keep the omelette from sticking to the pan.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury richness and flavour, and melts into the eggs as they set.

The step that matters

Cook immediately until set. Egg proteins coagulate with heat. Overcooking tightens them further and squeezes out water, leaving a rubbery texture, so remove the omelette once it is just set.

“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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