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Omelette-very Fine

A fluffy omelette made with eggs, milk, flour, butter, optional ham, parsley, thyme, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Omelette-very Fine

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the base

  1. Beat the egg yolks and whites separately.

  2. Reserve ¼ cup of the milk and stir in the flour.

  3. Boil the remaining milk, then stir in the flour mixture.

  4. Add salt and butter, then set aside to cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mix in the ham and herbs with the cooled mixture, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Grease a skillet and bake in the oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + thymetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks enrich the base, and beaten whites add lightness and structure as they set.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth base that holds the eggs.
Milk
Provides liquid that cooks into a tender, custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the base.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whisked and gently folded in. Stirring vigorously deflates them, so the omelette bakes flat and dense instead of light.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, flour, butter, ham, thyme):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, butter, ham, thyme. 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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