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Savoury Omelet

A quick fried egg dish flavored with parsley, herbs, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Savoury Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. Beat the eggs thoroughly in a bowl, then add salt, pepper, parsley, and herbs.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the beaten eggs into the frying pan as soon as the butter begins to sizzle.

  2. Scrape the bottom of the frying pan with a spoon until two-thirds of the mixture is lumpy.

  3. Lift the pan slightly off the heat and fold the omelet in half.

  4. Continue cooking until nearly set, then 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Thyme + chivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together580 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 that holds the omelet together when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor and keeps the eggs from sticking to the pan.

The step that matters

Scrape the bottom of the pan until two-thirds is lumpy. Stirring the eggs as they begin to set forms soft curds that cook evenly and keep the omelet tender. If the eggs are left still too long, the bottom overcooks and toughens before the top sets.

Swap the chive

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, egg, butter, thyme, 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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