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Potato Omelet

A baked potato and egg mixture cooked in a pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Wash, peel, and boil or steam the potatoes until done.

  2. Drain and mash the potatoes.

Make the omelet

  1. Beat the eggs with the cream.

  2. Mix the beaten eggs with the potato puree.

  3. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  4. Melt the butter in an omelet pan.

  5. Pour the mixture into the pan.

  6. Stir and cook until nearly set.

  7. Shape the omelet and let it brown.

  8. Turn it out onto a hot dish and serve immediately.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Mashed starch that gives the omelet a soft, tender body rather than a firm egg set.
Eggs
Set when heated to bind the potato puree into a cohesive omelet.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the eggs softer and more tender as they set.
Butter
Fat for cooking that adds flavor and helps the omelet brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Stir and cook until nearly set. Eggs set through protein coagulation when heated. Stopping while the omelet is still slightly moist keeps it tender, since residual heat finishes the set and overcooking makes eggs dry and rubbery.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, butter, pepper, 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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