Skip to main content
Main

Spanish Omelet

A baked omelet with tomatoes, mushrooms, and eggs, seasoned with salt and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,719 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Spanish Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. Stew the tomatoes in a pot until thick, stirring until smooth.

  2. Season the tomatoes with salt and cayenne pepper.

  3. Add the mushrooms and their juice to the tomatoes and boil until thick.

Make the omelette

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with salt and pepper.

  2. Melt butter in a skillet.

  3. Pour half of the egg mixture into the skillet.

  4. Cook until nearly set.

  5. Spread the tomato and mushroom mixture over the partially cooked omelet.

  6. Pour the remaining egg mixture over the top.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes.

  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. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 omelette, giving it body and a tender texture when cooked.
Tomatoes
Provide moisture, acidity and body to the sauce spread over the omelette.
Mushrooms
Add savory flavor and texture to the tomato sauce, with their juice adding moisture.
Butter
Adds richness and helps keep the egg mixture from sticking in the skillet.

The step that matters

Cook until nearly set before adding the topping. If the bottom egg layer is cooked too long, it becomes tough and dry; stopping while it is still slightly runny lets the final bake set it gently and keeps it tender.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipes