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Ham Omelet

A baked omelet with minced ham, garlic or parsley, eggs, milk, flour, butter, and salt.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Grease a skillet well.

  2. Mince the ham and garlic (or parsley).

  3. Beat the eggs separately.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the ham with the egg yolks.

  2. Heat the milk and thicken it with flour until boiling.

  3. Add butter and salt to the milk mixture.

  4. Let it cool slightly.

  5. Stir in the yolk and ham mixture.

Bake

  1. Gently fold in the egg whites.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 10 minutes until 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Garlic + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Whites beaten separately and folded in provide the airy structure that lifts the omelette.
Milk
Thickened with flour, it forms a smooth base that keeps the omelette moist.
Flour
Thickens the heated milk so it can hold the yolks and ham evenly.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the milk base.
Ham
Provides savory flavor and salty, meaty taste throughout the omelette.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the egg whites. Beaten whites trap air that makes the omelette rise. Stirring or deflating them vigorously knocks out that air, leaving a dense, flat result.

Swap the garlic

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, egg, milk, flour, 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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