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Potato Omelet

A skillet omelet made with mashed potato, eggs, pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Potato Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Scoop out the inside of the potato and beat it until smooth.

  2. Mix in pepper, salt, lemon juice, and the yolks of the eggs.

  3. Just before frying, fold in the beaten egg whites until frothy.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the mixture in a hot skillet for 5-6 minutes, folding the omelet over.

  2. Serve on a hot dish garnished with parsley.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

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

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites trap air and yolks set when heated, giving the omelet its structure and lift.
Potato
Adds soft, creamy body and moisture to the omelet.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the eggs and potato.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped egg whites trap air that expands in the heat and lifts the omelet. Add them just before frying and fold gently, since stirring or overmixing deflates the foam and makes the omelet dense.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, lemon, 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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