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A Large Omelet

A large omelette made with eggs, onions, parsley, pepper, sea salt, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

A Large Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Beat the eggs until frothy.

  2. Add the chopped onions and minced parsley to the eggs.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat butter in a frying pan over medium-high heat.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and cook for 5 minutes.

  3. When the omelet is set, fold it in half and serve hot.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into the omelet's structure as they cook, holding the filling together.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften in the eggs.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green aroma and a light herbal flavor.
Butter
Fats the pan and adds richness, helping the omelet release and brown lightly.

The step that matters

When the omelet is set, fold it in half. Egg proteins set with heat, and folding too early, while the top is still liquid, can tear the omelet or leak filling. Waiting until the surface is firm keeps it intact.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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