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 ↓
Bread Omelet
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Soak and mix
Soak the broken stale bread in hot milk.
Add grated cheese and mix well.
Cook the omelette
Divide the mixture into two portions and cook each as you would an omelet.
Alternatively, bake in a pudding dish at 350°F (175°C) until set.
Make the sauce and serve
Boil the eggs for about 10 minutes, then remove shells and cut in half.
In a saucepan, melt butter and blend with flour.
Add water and stir until smooth.
Add more butter, season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.
Stir in the eggs and serve on toast.
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.
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,130 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Stale bread
- Soaks up hot milk and gives the omelette a soft, custard-like body.
- Eggs
- Set on heating to bind the mixture and add structure and richness.
- Milk
- Softens the bread and adds moisture to the mixture.
- Cheese
- Melts into the mixture, adding savoury flavour and richness.
- Butter
- Adds fat and rich flavour to the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the butter into a roux that gives the sauce body.
The step that matters
Blend the butter and flour before adding water. Cooking the flour in melted butter coats the starch granules so they disperse evenly. Adding water to a dry, unstirred mixture can leave lumps, so stir steadily until smooth.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, cheese, egg, butter, flour, pepper):
- Figfits better
- Plumfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
- Vanillafits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, cheese, egg, butter, flour, pepper. 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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