Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Plain Omelet
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Beat the eggs separately.
Mix the eggs with boiling water and salt.
Heat a pan until very hot.
Add butter to the pan and let it melt.
Pour the egg mixture into the hot pan.
Shake the pan over heat until the omelet rises.
Place the pan in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for a few seconds until browned.
Run a knife between the omelet and the pan, fold it, and turn it onto a hot dish.
Add boiling water just before pouring the mixture into the pan.
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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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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