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Fine Herbs Omelette

A quick omelette made with eggs, butter, and finely chopped parsley, mushrooms, and other green herbs, seasoned with 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 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 ↓

Fine Herbs Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the parsley, mushrooms, and any green herbs finely.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Mix the chopped herbs into the beaten eggs.

Cook

  1. Heat butter in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the skillet and cook until set, folding as needed.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a soft, tender structure when cooked, forming the body of the omelette.
Butter
Adds richness and helps keep the eggs from sticking to the skillet.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg mixture until set. Eggs cook quickly over heat and turn rubbery if overcooked. Cooking over medium heat and folding gently keeps the proteins tender while the surface sets evenly.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mushroom, 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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