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Spanish Omelet

A baked omelet with onion, tomatoes, peppers, and eggs, topped with parsley and chili sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Spanish 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 sauce

  1. Fry the onion in butter until golden brown.

  2. Add tomatoes, red peppers, and salt; simmer gently.

Make the omelette

  1. Soak bread crumbs in warm milk, then mix in melted butter and egg yolks.

  2. Fold in the whipped egg whites gently.

  3. Pour mixture into a well-buttered omelet pan, cover, and cook over moderate heat for 15 minutes.

  4. Remove the lid and place in a 350°F (175°C) oven to brown.

Serve

  1. Transfer the omelet to a large platter, garnish with parsley, and pour chili sauce over it before serving.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites give the omelette lift and an airy, light texture, while the yolks add richness.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk, they add body and moisture, helping the omelette stay tender.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and helps the onion brown and the omelette set golden.
Onion
Fried until golden, it builds a sweet, savoury base for the sauce.
Tomatoes
Simmered with the peppers, they add acidity and moisture to the sauce.
Red peppers
Simmered into the sauce, they add sweetness and body.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whites hold air only when whipped stiff and folded in gently. Stirring or deflating them loses the trapped air, so the omelette turns out dense rather than light.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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