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Omelet with Cream Peas

An omelet folded with white sauce and cooked peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Omelet with Cream Peas

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 yolks of the eggs until thick.

  2. Add salt, pepper, and hot water; mix well.

  3. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  4. Cook the mixture in a buttered omelet pan until brown underneath.

  5. Finish cooking in a 400°F (200°C) oven until firm to the touch.

Serve

  1. Fold the omelet and carefully turn it onto a hot platter.

  2. Serve with white sauce poured around, mixed with cooked peas.

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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + peastop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  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. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Whipped yolks and whites set the omelet into a light, airy structure as they cook.
White sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy richness that complements the omelet.
Cooked peas
Add sweetness and texture to the sauce served alongside.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Whites that are under- or over-beaten won't hold air well. Under-beaten whites deflate the batter, while over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy and can separate, leaving the omelet flat or tough.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, butter, sauce. 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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