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Small Omelette Celestine

A small omelette filled with various fruit jams and dusted with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 703 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Small Omelette Celestine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the omelettes

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl, then mix in the pounded macaroons, sugar, and salt.

  2. Divide the mixture into 4 portions to make small omelettes.

Fill and finish

  1. Fill each omelette with a different filling: one with orange marmalade, one with green gages, one with currant jelly, and one with apricot jam.

  2. Dust the filled omelettes with sugar and glaze them until brown.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Orange + apricottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together703 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Currant + apricottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together188 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Orange + curranttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,034 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Sugar + apricottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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 and bind the mixture, giving the omelettes their structure.
Pounded macaroons
Add body and a crumbly, almond-like texture to the omelette base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown when glazed.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity, glossy filling that softens with heat.
Apricot jam
Adds sweetness and fruit flavour, and moisture to the filling.
Orange marmalade
Adds sweetness, acidity and bitter citrus aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Glazing until brown. Sugar browns quickly under high heat, so the omelettes can scorch before the filling warms through. Watch the colour closely and remove them as soon as they are golden brown.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, orange, apricot):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, orange, apricot. 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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