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Plain Omelet

A simple omelet made with eggs, butter, cream, salt, pepper, and garnished with cress or parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Plain Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs just enough to break the yolks into the whites, about a dozen strokes.

  2. Heat the butter in a small frying pan or omelet pan until it hisses.

  3. Lightly season the eggs with salt and pepper, then add the cream.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the eggs into the pan and shake gently in one direction to prevent sticking.

  2. When the omelet is set but still soft, fold it in half using a spatula.

  3. Invert the pan over a hot dish to drop the omelet onto the platter.

  4. Garnish with cress or parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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
Coats the pan and adds richness while keeping the eggs from sticking.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness so the omelet stays tender rather than rubbery.

The step that matters

Keep the omelet set but still soft when folding. Eggs keep cooking from residual heat after leaving the pan. Folding once the surface is just set but still moist keeps the omelet tender instead of dry and rubbery.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, pepper, cream. 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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