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Meat or Vegetable Omelet

A quick omelet made with eggs, butter, and optional minced meat or vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Chicken and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,528 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Meat or Vegetable Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs with salt until foamy.

  2. Heat butter in a skillet over medium heat.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour in the egg mixture and cook until the edges set.

  2. Add the minced meat or vegetables on one half of the omelet.

  3. Fold the omelet over the filling and cook for another minute.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Chicken + peastop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,528 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + peastop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: 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 structure of the omelet as they cook, holding the filling together.
Butter
Adds richness and keeps the eggs from sticking to the skillet.
Minced cooked chicken, veal, ham, bacon, or fish
Provides savory flavor and substance as the filling.

The step that matters

Cook until the edges set. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate under heat. If the heat is too high, the bottom browns and toughens before the center sets. Medium heat lets the omelet set evenly so it can be folded without tearing.

Swap the peas

The recipe marks peas as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, chicken):

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Peasthe original
  4. Almondfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, chicken. 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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