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Cherry or Apple Omelet

A pancake-like omelet made with fruit, flour, milk, eggs, butter, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cherry or Apple Omelet

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.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour and milk until stiff.

  2. Add eggs and thin the batter with milk to a tender pancake consistency.

  3. Stir in salt and sugar.

Cook and serve

  1. In a shallow skillet, heat lard and butter.

  2. Add cherries or apples to the skillet and pour the batter over them.

  3. Cook for a few minutes until set.

  4. If needed, brown the top by flipping onto a plate and returning to the skillet or placing in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a few minutes.

  5. Serve with fruit on top and sprinkle generously with sugar.

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

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

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Bind the batter and help it set into a tender omelet structure.
Flour
Forms the starchy base of the batter that gives the omelet body.
Milk
Adds moisture and thins the batter to a pourable, tender consistency.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown lightly when finished in heat.
Cherries or apples
Provide fruit flavor and moisture within the omelet.

The step that matters

Thinning the batter to the right consistency. A batter that is too stiff cooks up thick and dense, while one that is too thin will not hold together. Thinning with milk gradually gives a tender pancake-like texture that sets evenly in the skillet.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, egg, sugar, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, sugar, butter. 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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