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Bread and Milk Omelet

A savory omelet made with stale bread soaked in milk, eggs, and butter, topped with cold meat and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Bread and Milk Omelet

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.

Prepare the filling

  1. Fill a large coffee cup with pieces of stale bread and pour in enough milk to soak it.

  2. Let the bread soak for a few minutes.

  3. Prepare the chopped cold meat, moistened with gravy or water, and heat it.

Make the omelet

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs lightly and mix in the soaked bread and milk until smooth.

  2. Season with a slight amount of coarse sea salt.

  3. Melt butter in a hot frying pan and pour in the omelet mixture.

  4. Once it begins to set, transfer the pan to a 400°F (200°C) oven to finish cooking.

  5. Remove the pan from the oven and place it on the stove.

Fill and serve

  1. Spread half of the omelet with the hot meat, then fold the other half over.

  2. Slide the omelet onto a hot platter and 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 omelet as they cook, holding it together.
Stale bread
Soaks up milk and egg, giving the omelet a soft, custardy body.
Milk
Moistens the bread and thins the egg mixture for a tender texture.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the omelet brown and release from the pan.
Cold meat
Provides the savory filling that is heated through inside the folded omelet.

The step that matters

Transfer to the oven once the edges begin to set. Egg proteins firm with heat, so finishing in the oven sets the centre gently. Moving the pan too early can leave the middle runny, and leaving it too long can make the eggs tough and dry.

“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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