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Omelet with Fine Herbs

A lightly beaten egg omelet flavored with parsley, savory herbs, pepper, and salt, cooked in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Omelet with Fine Herbs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Beat the eggs in a basin until slightly or thoroughly mixed, depending on the amount of butter used.

  2. Add chopped parsley, savory herbs, pepper, and salt to the eggs and mix well.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat the butter in a pan until melted.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and cook until the edges set.

  3. Use a spatula to fold the omelet and slide it onto a hot 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 forms the body of the omelet.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and keeps the eggs from sticking to the pan.
Chopped parsley
Adds fresh herbal aroma and flavor to the eggs.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg mixture in the pan. Egg proteins set quickly over moderate heat. If the heat is too high, the bottom browns and toughens before the top sets, and if too low the omelet stays runny and is hard to fold. Letting the edges set first lets the center finish gently.

“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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