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Omelet, with Fine Herbs

A quick egg dish flavored with fresh herbs, cooked in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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

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

  2. Chop the herbs finely and mix them into the eggs.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat and add butter.

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

  3. Gently lift the edges with a spatula, allowing uncooked egg to flow underneath.

  4. When the top is slightly runny, fold the omelet in half and 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 + 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 delicate structure when heated, forming the body of the omelet.
Fresh herbs
Add fresh, aromatic flavor and color to the eggs.
Butter
Adds richness and helps prevent the eggs from sticking to the pan.

The step that matters

Cook over medium heat and lift the edges. Egg proteins set quickly at high heat and turn rubbery or brown. Gentle medium heat and lifting the edges let uncooked egg flow underneath, keeping the omelet tender.

“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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