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Omlette Aux Fines Herbes

A French omelette flavored with minced herbs, shallot, salt, pepper, and cooked in butter or lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,898 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Omlette Aux Fines Herbes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Whisk the eggs lightly in a bowl until well combined.

  2. Add minced herbs, shallot, salt, and pepper to the eggs and mix gently.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a small non-stick pan over medium heat and add butter or lard.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and cook without stirring until the bottom is set.

  3. When the edges are firm but the center is slightly runny, fold the omelet in half and 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. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Egg + shallottop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,380 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
Provide the structure that sets into the omelet body when heated.
Minced herbs
Add aroma and fresh flavour to the eggs.
Butter or lard
Adds fat to the pan, helping prevent sticking and contributing richness.

The step that matters

Cooking without stirring until the bottom is set. Egg proteins coagulate as they heat, so leaving the eggs undisturbed lets a set base form. Stirring too early breaks up forming curds, leaving the omelet ragged and wet rather than smooth.

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, 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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