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Omelet with Ham

A quick omelet made with cooked minced ham, Madeira sauce, eggs, shallot, parsley, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Omelet with Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Moisten the minced ham with Madeira sauce.

Cook the omelet

  1. In a skillet, heat butter and sauté shallot and parsley until fragrant.

  2. Pour in the eggs and cook until set, then add the ham mixture.

  3. Fold the omelet and serve immediately.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Sauce + shallottop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 into the structure that holds the omelet together and gives it a tender body.
Minced ham
Adds savory, salty flavor and substance to the filling.
Madeira sauce
Adds sweet, wine-based depth and moisture to the ham.
Minced shallot
Adds a mild, sweet aromatic onion flavor when sautéed in butter.

The step that matters

Cook the eggs until just set. Eggs turn firm and rubbery when overcooked, while slightly underdone eggs stay tender and moist. Removing the pan from heat while the surface is still slightly glossy keeps the omelet soft. Adding the ham after the eggs set lets the filling stay warm without overcooking the eggs.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, sauce, egg, shallot, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sauce, egg, shallot, butter. 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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