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Ham Omelet

A baked omelet with chopped ham, beaten eggs, sweet milk, pepper, salt, and baking soda.

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

Ham Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the omelet

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the yolks with the sweet milk, pepper, salt, and baking soda.

  3. Combine the egg whites and yolk mixture gently.

  4. Pour the mixture into a hot, buttered pan.

  5. Sprinkle a layer of chopped ham on top.

  6. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the eggs are set.

Serve

  1. Cut the omelet into pieces and stack them on top of each other.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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
Whites whipped to stiff peaks trap air, giving the omelet its light, risen structure.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture to the yolks, keeping the baked omelet tender rather than dry.
Baking soda
Reacts with the mixture to help it rise and lighten during baking.
Chopped ham
Adds savory flavor and salty richness to the layer baked into the omelet.

The step that matters

Fold the whites in gently. Stiff egg whites hold the air that lightens the omelet. Stirring or deflating them vigorously knocks out that air, leaving a dense, flat result.

“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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