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Bread Omelet. No. 1

A savory or sweet omelet made with eggs and grated bread soaked in liquid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Bread Omelet. No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. Soak the grated bread in milk, water, cream, white wine, gravy, lemon juice, brandy, or rum, depending on whether you want a sweet or savory omelet.

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

  4. Add the soaked bread and mix well while beating constantly.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a buttered frying pan until hot, then pour in the omelet mixture.

  2. Cook on one side only, then turn it 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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into the omelet's structure as they cook, forming the body of the dish.
Grated bread
Soaked to absorb liquid, adding moisture and a softer, more tender texture.
Butter
Greases the pan so the omelet releases cleanly and browns lightly on the surface.

The step that matters

Cook on one side only, then fold. Cooking on one side keeps the omelet from over-toughening. Folding it quickly after turning keeps steam from condensing on the surface and making it soggy.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, 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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