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Cheese Omelets

A quick egg dish with grated cheese, parsley, salt, and pepper, folded and served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cheese Omelets

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the filling

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl until well mixed.

  2. Add the grated cheese, minced parsley, salt, and pepper, then mix well.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the skillet.

  3. Cook until set, about 2-3 minutes.

  4. Fold the omelet in half.

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

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

  2. Cheese + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  4. Cheese + parsleytop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,507 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Egg + cheesetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when heated to form the structure of the omelet.
Grated cheese
Melts into the eggs, adding richness and savory flavor.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma and slight brightness.

The step that matters

Cook until set. Eggs turn from liquid to firm as their proteins coagulate with heat. Cooking too long or too hot makes them dry, tough and rubbery, while stopping before they set leaves the centre runny.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cheese, 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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