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Oyster Omelet

A savory omelet flavored with oysters and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Oyster Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Cook the oysters in a saucepan over low heat until the gills curl, then drain and save the liquor.

Make the sauce

  1. In another saucepan, melt the butter, then add the flour, salt, and pepper.

  2. Measure the oyster liquor and add enough milk to make ½ cup.

  3. Stir the mixture until thickened, then add the oysters.

Finish and serve

  1. Make a plain omelet and pour the oyster sauce over it.

  2. 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Oysters
Provide the main savory flavor and tender bite of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the liquid.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base of the sauce, adding body and mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Stirring the sauce until thickened. Flour must be cooked in fat and stirred while liquid is added, or it clumps and the sauce stays thin or lumpy. Cooking it until thickened lets starch swell and set the sauce smooth.

“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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