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Jelly Omelet

An omelet made from beaten eggs and grated bread, spread with jelly before folding and dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Jelly Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and remove the treadles.

  2. Add the grated bread and season with nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

  3. Beat the mixture well.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a buttered frying pan until hot.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and cook on one side only.

  3. Before folding, spread jelly on the omelet.

  4. Turn it out onto a warm platter and dust with powdered sugar.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when heated to form the omelet's main structure and body.
Grated bread
Absorbs some liquid, giving the cooked omelet a softer, more tender texture.
Jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity flavor, and moisture to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and helps the surface brown lightly in the pan.

The step that matters

Cook the eggs on one side at a moderate heat until set. Egg proteins set as they warm. High heat can scorch the base and make the eggs tough before the top is set. Spread the jelly and fold only once the surface has set enough to hold its shape.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, sugar, butter. 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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