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Savoury Omelet

A savory omelet made with finely chopped meats, ham, shallot, parsley, and eggs, folded with beaten whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Savoury Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the cold fowl, veal, or veal kidney very fine and mix with an equal amount of chopped lean ham.

  2. Add finely chopped shallot, parsley, pepper, and salt to the meat mixture.

Make the batter

  1. In a cup, mix the yolks of 3 eggs with 1 teaspoon of flour and 1 cup of milk.

  2. Beat the egg whites separately until stiff.

Fry and fold

  1. Heat a frying pan and ensure the lard is boiling before adding the meat and yolk mixture.

  2. As soon as you begin to fry, gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks bind the milk and flour batter, while beaten whites give the omelette its light, airy lift.
Cold fowl, veal, or veal kidney
Provides the cooked-meat base and savory body of the omelette filling.
Lean ham
Adds salty, savory flavor to the meat filling.
Flour
Helps thicken the yolk and milk mixture so it holds together when fried.
Milk
Adds moisture to the batter, keeping the omelette tender.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Beaten whites trap air that gives lift, but overmixing or folding too roughly deflates them, leaving a dense omelette. Gentle folding keeps the foam intact.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, parsley, pepper, egg, flour, milk):

  1. Carrotfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, parsley, pepper, egg, flour, 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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