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Veal Omelette

A baked omelette made with veal cutlet, salt pork, eggs, cream, butter, thyme, parsley, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Veal Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and stir in the cream.

  3. Combine the egg mixture with the chopped meats.

  4. Melt the butter with thyme and parsley, then mix it into the meat.

  5. Season the mixture well with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a round tin and bake for 4 hours.

  2. Let it cool, then cut into slices for tea or lunch.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the meat and set into a firm, sliceable custard as they cook.
Rich sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the set mixture tender rather than dry.
Veal cutlet
Forms the main body of the omelette, providing the meaty texture of the dish.
Raw salt pork
Contributes fat and savoury flavour that keeps the meat moist during long baking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying the flavour of the herbs through the mixture.

The step that matters

Baking for 4 hours at 300°F. Long, gentle heat lets the egg proteins set evenly without curdling or drying the meat. Too high a heat or too short a bake can leave the centre wet or the texture tough.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, egg, cream, butter, parsley, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, egg, cream, butter, parsley, 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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