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Bread Omelet. No. 1

A fried egg mixture with soaked bread, seasoned with nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Bread Omelet. No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and remove the yolks.

  2. Soak the grated bread in your choice of liquid.

  3. Beat the eggs with nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

  4. Add the soaked bread to the eggs and mix well.

Cook and fold

  1. Heat a buttered frying pan until hot.

  2. Pour the mixture into the pan and cook on one side only.

  3. Turn the omelet onto a dish and fold it to prevent steam from condensing.

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

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (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 main structure of the omelet as they cook.
Grated bread
Soaks up liquid and keeps the omelet tender and moist.

The step that matters

Cook on one side only. Cooking the mixture on one side lets the base set while the top stays soft and creamy. Flipping or over-cooking the eggs makes them dry and tough.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

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