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Eggs and Omelets

A quick omelet made with eggs and a mixture of parsley, onion, chives, shallots, sorrel, and chervil, cooked in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sorrel and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 247 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Eggs and Omelets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add the minced parsley, onion, chives, shallots, sorrel, and chervil to the eggs and mix well.

Cook

  1. Heat a skillet over medium heat and add butter.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the skillet and cook until set, then fold and serve.

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. Sorrel + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Chive + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Shallot + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Shallot + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together38 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chive + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a tender structure as they cook, forming the body of the omelet.
Butter
Coats the skillet and adds richness and flavor while preventing the eggs from sticking.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green aroma and a light herbal flavor to the eggs.
Chives
Contribute a mild onion-like aroma and fresh flavor to the eggs.
Shallots
Add a sweet, mild aromatic flavor to the eggs.

The step that matters

Cook until set, then fold. Eggs cooked over too high heat turn tough and rubbery because the proteins tighten and squeeze out moisture. Cooking over medium heat until just set keeps the omelet tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, parsley, chive, shallot, sorrel, chervil, butter):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Welsh onionfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, parsley, chive, shallot, sorrel, chervil, 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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