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Breakfast

Plain Omelette

A simple omelette made with eggs and butter, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Plain Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Crack the eggs into a bowl and beat them lightly.

  2. Heat the butter in a frying pan over medium heat until melted.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the eggs into the pan and let them cook for a minute.

  2. Firmly hold the handle and jerk the pan toward you to form the omelette into a roll.

  3. Allow it to brown well, then slide it onto a platter.

  4. Garnish with parsley 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. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a tender structure when cooked, forming the body of the omelette.
Butter
Coats the pan so the eggs release cleanly and gains a light golden browning.

The step that matters

Forming the roll with the pan jerk. Eggs set quickly once in the hot pan. Lifting and jerking the pan while the surface is still slightly loose lets the omelette fold over on itself. Waiting too long leaves it stuck and torn, and a cold pan makes it stick.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter. 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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