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Onion Omelette

A baked omelette with sautéed onions, eggs, milk, cream, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Onion Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the onions and sauté them in butter with salt and pepper until tender.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the milk, cream, bread crumbs, and cooked onions.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie dish and bake until set.

  2. Serve directly from the dish or turn it out and add a sauce like Bechamel.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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
Set the custard structure as they cook, holding the omelette together.
Milk
Adds moisture and makes the egg mixture softer and more tender.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving a silkier, more tender texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help give the baked omelette body and structure.
Young onions
Add sweetness and aroma once softened in butter.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins coagulate with heat, so underbaking leaves a runny centre while overbaking makes the custard dry and rubbery. Watch for a centre that is just firm.

Swap the onion

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

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

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