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Omelette

A cooked egg dish made with eggs, cream, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and add cream, salt, and pepper.

  2. In an omelette pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  3. Whip the eggs thoroughly and pour them into the pan when the butter starts to splutter.

Cook and serve

  1. Stir the eggs gently as they begin to firm up.

  2. Once the bottom is browned, roll the omelette and serve.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into the omelette's structure as they cook, forming the body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the eggs brown and release from the pan.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the eggs, making the omelette more tender.

The step that matters

Stir the eggs gently as they begin to firm up. Gentle stirring keeps curds small and tender. Stirring too hard or too long can make the eggs tough and dry, while leaving them still can cause uneven setting and overcooked edges.

“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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