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Egg Omelet

A lightly browned omelet made with eggs, corn starch, milk, and butter, garnished with parsley and lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Egg Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Separate the yolks and whites of the eggs and beat them separately.

  2. Dissolve the corn starch in the milk.

  3. Combine the egg yolks, milk mixture, and salt.

Cook and serve

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the skillet and cook slowly until rich brown.

  3. Roll the omelet like a jelly roll and transfer it to a hot platter with minimal handling.

  4. Garnish with parsley and lemon slices.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Corn + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together943 recipes

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

  5. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 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
Egg proteins set on heating, giving the omelette its structure and body.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture and helps keep the omelette tender and moist.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, diluting the eggs so they cook more gently.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and helps the omelette brown and release from the pan.

The step that matters

Cook slowly over low heat until rich brown. High heat toughens egg proteins and can scorch the surface before the centre sets. Gentle heat sets the eggs evenly and gives a tender, evenly browned omelette.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, corn, milk, butter, lemon):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, corn, milk, butter, lemon. 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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