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Cheese Omelet

A fluffy cheese omelet made with milk, flour, baking powder, eggs, cheese, butter, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cheese 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 batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the milk, flour, and baking powder.

  2. Add the grated cheese and the beaten egg yolks to the mixture.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Gently fold the egg whites into the cheese mixture.

Cook and brown

  1. Heat the melted butter in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Pour the mixture into the skillet and cook until half set.

  3. Transfer to a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) to brown for about 10 minutes.

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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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 whipped to stiff peaks trap air, giving the omelet its light, puffy structure, while yolks add richness.
Milk
Provides liquid that moistens the batter and helps it set into a tender texture.
Flour
Starch that thickens the batter and gives the omelet body so it holds together.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the omelet rise and stay airy.
Grated cheese
Adds fat and savory flavor, and its proteins firm up as the omelet sets.
Melted butter
Adds fat for flavor and helps the bottom of the omelet brown in the skillet.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the cheese mixture. Whipped whites hold air that gives the omelet its lift. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring or deflating the foam makes the omelet dense and flat.

“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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