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Omelette with Ham or Parsley

A quick omelette made with eggs, milk, butter, and optional ham, parsley, peas, or tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Omelette with Ham or Parsley

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Separate the eggs and beat each part well.

  2. Add salt, pepper, and milk to the eggs and mix.

Cook the omelette

  1. Heat a frying pan and add a small piece of butter until bubbling.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the pan, moving it around to prevent burning.

  3. Occasionally lift the pan from the heat to control cooking.

  4. Use a broad-bladed knife to loosen the edges and roll the omelette.

  5. Once set and cooked, tip the omelette onto a dish.

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

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Peas + tomatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pepper + peastop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Milk + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide the structure that sets into the omelette's body when heated.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the omelette tender rather than dry.
Butter
Greases the pan to prevent sticking and adds richness and flavour.

The step that matters

Moving the egg mixture around in the pan. Constant gentle movement keeps the egg mixture from burning on contact with the hot pan while it sets. Lifting the pan off the heat when needed slows cooking so the eggs set gently and stay tender instead of turning rubbery.

Swap the peas

The recipe marks peas as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, milk, butter, ham, tomato):

  1. Beansfits about as well
  2. Peasthe original
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Walnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, milk, butter, ham, tomato. 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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