Name: French Omelette
Ingredients: 1 pint milk; ½ pint bread crumbs; 3 eggs; ½ tablespoon flour; 1 small onion, chopped finely; chopped parsley; pepper; coarse sea salt

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 ↓

French Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine milk, bread crumbs, eggs, flour, onion, parsley, pepper, and salt.
Beat the eggs until light and mix all ingredients together.
Heat melted butter in a pan over medium heat.
Pour the mixture into the pan and cook until brown.
Fold the omelette 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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, egg, flour, parsley, pepper):

Shallotfits better
Capsicumfits better
Carrotfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, egg, flour, parsley, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.