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Omelet. No. 1

A savory omelet made with onions, butter, flour, and hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Omelet. No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Make the onion base

  1. In a stewpan, combine sliced onions and butter. Cover and cook until the onions are browned, stirring occasionally.

  2. Stir in enough flour to create a stiff paste.

  3. Gradually add water or milk until the mixture is the thickness of good cream.

  4. Season with pepper and salt.

Finish and serve

  1. Prepare hard-boiled eggs by shredding or cutting them into halves or quarters.

  2. Combine the eggs with the onion mixture and serve.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Onions
Cooked slowly in butter, they brown and add sweetness and savory depth.
Butter
Cooks the onions and adds richness and flavor.
Flour
Thickens the mixture into a stiff paste that holds the dish together.
Hard-boiled eggs
Provide body and substance, mixed through the onion base.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour and liquid gradually. Adding liquid slowly to the flour-and-butter mixture prevents lumps, so the sauce thickens evenly to the texture of good cream.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, 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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