Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Omelet. Mrs. Midgley
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the eggs
Beat the yolks and whites of the eggs separately.
Add pepper and salt to the yolks, then stir in the milk.
Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.
Cook and serve
Heat a pan until very hot and add a good amount of butter.
Pour the egg mixture into the pan and cook for 10 minutes.
Transfer the pan to a 400°F (200°C) oven for 3 minutes.
Slide the omelet onto a hot plate and serve immediately.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together26,984 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Whites trap air for lift and yolks set to give the omelet its structure and richness.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and makes the omelet softer and more tender.
- Butter
- Adds fat for browning and flavor and keeps the omelet from sticking to the pan.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only when beaten and handled gently. Stirring or deflating them loses the trapped air, so the omelet turns out flat and dense instead of light.
“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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