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Baked Omelet with Greens

A baked omelet made with greens, butter, flour, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Baked Omelet with Greens

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the greens

  1. Chop the kale very fine, using a meat chopper if possible.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour, and cook for about 1 minute.

  2. Add the milk while stirring constantly, and cook until the mixture is smooth and thick.

  3. Stir in the chopped greens, egg yolks, and seasonings.

Bake and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture gently.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking pan and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 30 minutes or until firm and brown.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Kale + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together226 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Kale + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together147 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Kale + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together492 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg whites whipped to stiffness lift the mixture, and the yolks help set it as it bakes.
Flour
Cooked with melted butter, it forms a roux that thickens the liquid into a smooth base.
Butter
Fat that enriches the base and helps the baked surface brown.
Greens
Finely chopped kale adds body, flavour and moisture to the baked mixture.
Milk
Liquid that, heated with the roux, forms a smooth, thick base.

The step that matters

Fold the beaten egg whites gently. Whites beaten to stiff peaks hold air that makes the omelet rise. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, leaving a dense, flat result.

Swap the kale

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, egg, milk, pepper, lemon):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Kalethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, milk, pepper, lemon. 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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