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Bread Omelet

A savory dish of soaked bread crumbs mixed with eggs and milk, baked into a fluffy omelet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Bread Omelet

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Bread 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.

Make the omelet

  1. Soak the stale bread crumbs in sweet milk for 15 minutes.

  2. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs, salt, and pepper to the mixture.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  4. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a hot omelet pan and pour in the mixture.

  5. Cook until puffed, then finish in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

Make the white sauce

  1. For the white sauce, melt 2 tablespoons of butter, add 2 tablespoons of flour, and season.

  2. Gradually add 1 cup of hot milk, stirring until thickened.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Yolks enrich the mixture, while whipped whites trap air that lifts the omelet.
Stale bread crumbs
Soak up the milk and give the omelet a soft, tender body.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the omelet brown in the hot pan.
Flour
Starch that thickens the hot milk into a smooth white sauce.
Hot milk
Liquid that hydrates the flour and sets into a creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Whipped egg whites hold air bubbles that make the omelet puff. Vigorous stirring deflates them, so the omelet turns dense and flat instead of light.

“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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