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Prawn Omelet

A quick omelet made with chopped prawns, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Prawn Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the prawns or crayfish tails into very small pieces.

  2. Season with salt, cayenne, and nutmeg.

  3. Fry the mixture in a little butter until cooked.

Make the omelet

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl and add the minced prawns.

  2. Fry the omelet in the usual way until set.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Crayfish + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Crayfish + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together87 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Prawns or crayfish tails
Provide the main filling and savory flavor of the omelet.
Eggs
Set into the structure that holds the omelet together.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the filling and omelet brown lightly in the pan.

The step that matters

Frying the omelet until set. Eggs set when their proteins coagulate with heat. Cooking too hot or too long makes them tough and rubbery, while stopping too early leaves a runny centre. Gentle heat and watching for a just-set surface give a tender result.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against crayfish, egg, pepper, butter. 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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