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A Foie-Gras Omelet

A fluffy omelet with foie gras, cream, butter, pepper, salt, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 Foie-Gras Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and add the cream, 2 ounces of butter, pepper, salt, and parsley.

  2. Whip the egg mixture until frothy.

Cook the omelet

  1. Melt the remaining 2 ounces of butter in an omelet pan over medium heat.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the pan when the butter begins to bubble.

  3. Stir the omelet gently.

  4. Add the foie gras slices before shaping.

  5. Let the top brown slightly.

Serve

  1. Serve with brown stock poured around it.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

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, forming its body.
Butter
Enriches the eggs with fat and helps keep the omelet from sticking while it cooks.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the beaten eggs for a tender texture.
Foie gras
Adds rich, fatty flavor and a melting texture to the omelet.

The step that matters

Stirring the omelet gently. Gentle stirring lets liquid egg flow into the gaps and cook into soft curds. Vigorous stirring can overcook and toughen the eggs, while leaving them still lets the base set too firmly before the filling is added.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits less well

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