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Fish Omelet

A quick omelet made with chopped cold fish, seasoned with cayenne pepper and sea salt, cooked in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove skin and bones from the cold fish and chop it finely.

  2. Season the fish with cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Warm the fish in butter until hot.

Finish the omelette

  1. Add the warm fish to the omelet just before folding it.

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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into the omelette structure and provide the body that holds the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and helps warm the fish gently without drying it.
Remains of any cold fish
Forms the main filling, providing flavor and substance to the omelette.

The step that matters

Adding the warm fish just before folding. Fish is already cooked, so it only needs warming. Adding it late keeps it moist and prevents the eggs from overcooking and turning rubbery before the omelette is folded.

“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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