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Dried Beef Omelette

A quick omelette made with dried beef, milk, eggs, flour, butter, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Dried Beef Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the eggs and flour together in a bowl.

  2. Stir the egg mixture into the boiling milk, stirring constantly until it thickens.

  3. Add the shaved dried beef and mix well.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, add butter and pepper to taste.

  2. If the beef is very salty, freshen it in cold water before using.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  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
Thicken the milk as they set, giving the dish its body and structure.
Flour
Helps stabilise the egg mixture so it thickens smoothly rather than curdling.
Boiling milk
Forms the liquid base that the egg and flour mixture thickens into a creamy sauce.
Dried beef
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a chewy texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel at the end.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the boiling milk. Eggs can scramble if they meet very hot liquid without constant stirring. Adding them gradually while stirring constantly tempers the mixture so it thickens smoothly.

“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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