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Omelette

A cooked egg mixture with parsley, flour, and salt, folded in a pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,675 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Crack the eggs into a bowl and beat them well.

  2. Chop the parsley finely and mix it into the eggs.

  3. Add a little flour and salt to the mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a pan over medium heat and add butter or oil to the pan.

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

  3. Fold the omelette in half and serve hot.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when heated to form the body of the omelette.
Flour
Adds a little body so the egg mixture holds together more firmly.
Parsley
Adds fresh aroma and a green, herbal flavour.

The step that matters

Cook until set. Eggs set through gentle heat, and high heat or overcooking makes proteins tighten and turn dry and rubbery. Stop cooking once the surface is just set so the omelette stays tender.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour. 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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