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Spinach Omelet

A baked spinach and egg dish with bread soaked in milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Spinach 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.

Prepare the filling

  1. Parboil the spinach.

  2. Chop the spinach finely.

  3. Melt the butter in a skillet.

  4. Sauté the spinach for a few minutes.

  5. Soak the bread in ½ cup of milk.

  6. Add the soaked bread to the spinach.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add 2 cups of milk to the eggs.

  3. Beat the egg whites separately.

  4. Fold the beaten egg whites into the mixture.

  5. Add salt to taste.

  6. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Spinach + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the mixture into a structure and add richness when baked.
Bread
Soaks up milk and gives the dish body and a soft, custardy crumb.
Milk
Adds moisture and softens the mixture as it bakes.
Spinach
Provides the main filling, adding flavour, moisture and a green colour.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the spinach as it cooks in the skillet.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air when beaten, and folding gently keeps that air in the mixture so the dish rises and stays light; stirring hard would deflate it.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, milk, egg. 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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