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Ham Omelet

A quick omelet with ham, parsley, eggs, salt, pepper, and 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 ↓

Ham Omelet

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Heat butter in an omelet pan.

  3. Pour in the egg mixture and cook until it begins to set.

  4. Sprinkle the chopped ham and parsley over the omelet.

  5. Fold the omelet and turn it onto a hot dish.

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

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

  4. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when cooked to form the body of the omelet.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor and a chewy bite to the filling.
Butter
Coats the pan so the omelet releases cleanly and adds richness.

The step that matters

Pour in the egg mixture and cook until it begins to set. Eggs cook quickly once they hit the hot pan. Stopping at a just-set state keeps the omelet tender, while overcooking makes the proteins tighten and turn dry and rubbery.

“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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