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Friars Omelet

An apple-based omelet baked with breadcrumbs, butter, sugar, eggs, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,706 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Friars Omelet

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel, core, and slice the apples.

  2. Place them in a saucepan with the water and simmer until they become a pulp.

  3. Stir in the sugar and butter, then allow to cool slightly.

  4. Add the beaten egg to the mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a pudding dish and sprinkle a layer of breadcrumbs on the bottom and sides.

  2. Pour the apple mixture into the dish and sprinkle more breadcrumbs on top.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Turn out onto a dish and sprinkle with sugar.

  2. Serve with cream or custard.

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. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Apples
Cook down into a pulp that forms the moist, sweet body of the dish.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, absorbent layer that holds the apple mixture and browns during baking.
Eggs
Bind the apple pulp so it sets into a sliceable mass when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the texture and aiding browning.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and adds a caramelised finish on the outside.

The step that matters

Cooling before adding the egg. If the apple mixture is still very hot when the beaten egg goes in, the egg can scramble instead of blending smoothly, leaving an uneven, lumpy set after baking.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, 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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