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Tomato Omelet

A tomato and egg omelet cooked with onions, butter, and crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato sauce

  1. Remove the skin from the tomatoes and finely chop them.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the tomatoes, onions, butter, salt, pepper, and crushed cracker.

  3. Cover and simmer for about 1 hour.

Cook and serve

  1. Beat the eggs until frothy.

  2. Heat a well-greased griddle.

  3. Stir the eggs into the tomato mixture and pour it into the griddle.

  4. Brown on one side, then fold and brown on the other side.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + eggtop 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 into the structure of the omelet, binding the tomato mixture together.
Tomatoes
Provide moisture and acidity that flavour the omelet and keep it tender.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften during simmering.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the surface brown in the pan.
Cracker
Absorbs liquid from the tomatoes and helps thicken the mixture.

The step that matters

Simmer the tomato mixture until thick before adding the eggs. Tomatoes release a lot of water as they cook. If the mixture is still watery when the eggs go in, the omelet will be soggy and may not set or brown properly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, pepper, 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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