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Potato Omelet

A skillet omelet made with butter, boiled potatoes, parsley, salt, pepper, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Potato Omelet

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped potatoes, salt, pepper, and parsley; cook until browned.

  3. In a bowl, beat the eggs and pour them into the skillet over the potatoes.

  4. When the eggs begin to set, fold the omelet 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.

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

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a structure that holds the potatoes together as the omelette cooks.
Potatoes
Provide the bulk and browned, starchy texture that fills the omelette.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the potatoes brown without sticking to the skillet.

The step that matters

Add the eggs when the potatoes are browned and let them set gently. Eggs cook quickly and turn rubbery if the heat is too high. Medium heat lets the proteins set slowly into a tender layer, and folding only once they begin to set keeps the omelette soft.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, pepper, egg. 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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