Skip to main content
Breakfast

French Omelette

A savory omelette made with milk, bread crumbs, eggs, flour, onion, parsley, pepper, salt, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

French Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine milk, bread crumbs, beaten eggs, flour, chopped onion, parsley, pepper, and salt.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Pour the mixture into the pan and cook until the bottom is brown.

  3. Carefully turn the omelette over and cook until browned on the other side.

  4. Fold the omelette in half when serving.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set into the omelette's structure as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the milk and give the omelette a soft, thick body.
Milk
Adds moisture so the omelette stays tender rather than dry.
Flour
Thickens the liquid mixture so it holds together in the pan.

The step that matters

Turning the omelette. The mixture is wet and loosely set, so it can tear or break if turned too early. Wait until the bottom is firmly browned before turning it gently.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

You might also like

Rice GruelRice Gruel28 recipesPeptoned Milk GruelPeptoned Milk Gruel9 recipes