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Asparagus Omelet

An omelet with boiled asparagus 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: Asparagus and flour work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 936 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Asparagus Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the asparagus until tender, then drain and cut into short pieces.

  2. Dissolve the flour in a little cold water, then whisk in the cream until smooth.

  3. Add salt and the asparagus to the cream mixture.

Cook the omelet

  1. Beat the eggs with the milk in a bowl.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into a hot omelet pan.

  3. Add the asparagus mixture before folding, then deftly turn the omelet onto a hot dish.

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. Asparagus + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Asparagus + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

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

  5. Asparagus + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,338 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Set into the structure of the omelet as they cook in the hot pan.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the filling.
Asparagus
Provides the main vegetable flavor and a tender bite in the filling.
Flour
Thickens the cream mixture so the filling stays smooth and holds together.

The step that matters

Add the asparagus mixture before folding. Adding the filling at the right moment, while the egg is still soft, lets it sit inside the omelet. Folding too late can leave the eggs overcooked and dry, and the filling may not stay enclosed.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cream, egg, milk):

  1. Arrowrootfits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream, egg, milk. 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.

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