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Cheese Omelet

A baked bread and cheese mixture cooked in a pie dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the custard base

  1. Beat the eggs and mix them with the milk.

  2. Crush the toast or rusks with your hands and soak them in the egg and milk mixture.

  3. Add the cheese, nutmeg, and seasoning.

  4. Melt half of the butter and mix it with the other ingredients.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a pie dish and pour in the mixture.

  2. Cut the remaining butter into small pieces and scatter them over the top.

  3. Bake for 1 hour at 350°F (175°C) or until well set.

  4. Serve hot or cold.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the mixture into a sliceable custard as they cook.
Toasted bread or rusks
Soak up the egg and milk to give the dish body and structure.
Grated cheese
Adds rich flavour and fat, and firms slightly as it cooks.
Milk
Provides moisture so the custard stays tender rather than dry.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the top brown lightly.

The step that matters

Baking until well set. Egg proteins firm as they heat, so underbaking leaves a runny centre while overbaking makes the custard grainy and dry. Checking for a set centre rather than relying only on the time helps.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, cheese, milk, butter, pepper. 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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