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A Simple and Plain Sweet Omelet

A sweet omelet made with eggs, citrus zest, cream, and optional apricot jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

A Simple and Plain Sweet Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and add salt, lemon zest, chopped citron, orange peel, and lemon peel.

  2. Stir in the cream, powdered sugar, orange flower water, and grated nutmeg.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the mixture in a pan like a regular omelet.

  2. Trim the edges and roll it up.

  3. If desired, spread apricot jam inside before serving.

  4. Serve on a napkin.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Orange + apricottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together703 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

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

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into the structure of the omelet, holding the filling together as it cooks.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the omelet tender rather than dry.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the liquid egg mixture.
Chopped citron
Adds candied citrus flavor and aroma to the eggs.

The step that matters

Fry the mixture in a pan like a regular omelet.. Eggs cook quickly and turn rubbery or dry over high heat. Cooking gently over moderate heat keeps the omelet tender and prevents browning before it sets through.

Swap the apricot

The recipe marks apricot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, lemon, orange, cream, sugar, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon, orange, cream, sugar, nutmeg. 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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