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Omelette Aux Fines Herbes

A light omelette folded with finely chopped chives, parsley, and chervil, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 370 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Omelette Aux Fines Herbes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Separate the egg yolks from the whites.

  2. Mix the chopped herbs with the egg yolks.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the herb and yolk mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the omelet in a hot skillet until set, then 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. Chive + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chervil + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together867 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air, giving the omelette its light, airy structure as it sets.
Chives
Add a mild onion-like aroma and fresh flavour to the egg mixture.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, green herbal flavour and aroma to the omelette.
Chervil
Contributes a delicate, anise-like aroma and fresh flavour to the eggs.

The step that matters

Fold the beaten whites into the yolk mixture. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the beaten whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the omelette dense instead of light and fluffy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, chive, chervil, 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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