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Cheese Omelet

A light omelet made with eggs, butter, cream, and grated cheese, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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

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.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs until light.

  2. Add cream and grated cheese, then season with salt and pepper.

  3. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt butter in an omelet pan over medium heat.

  2. Pour in the egg mixture and push it up to one side with a spoon as it cooks.

  3. When nearly set, place in the oven at 400°F (200°C) to brown.

  4. 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. Butter + creamtop 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. Cheese + peppertop 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
Whites trap air for lift, and yolks add richness and set the omelet's structure.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and helps the omelet brown and release from the pan.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the omelet tender rather than dry.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and fat, and browns under the oven heat.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Stiffly beaten whites hold air that gives the omelet its lift. Overmixing or deflating them with a vigorous stir loses that air, leaving a dense, flat omelet.

“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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