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Omelet Herb

A baked bread and egg mixture flavored with herbs, onion, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Omelet Herb

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

  1. Soak the bread in the milk.

  2. In a skillet, melt 1½ oz. of butter and fry the onion until soft.

  3. Mix the fried onion with the soaked bread.

Bake

  1. Add the herbs, parsley, and seasoning, and mix well.

  2. Butter a pie dish with the remaining butter.

  3. Pour the mixture into the pie dish and bake 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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Soaked in milk, it softens and gives the omelet a light, custardy body.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the mixture and giving it structure.
Milk
Soaks into the bread and adds moisture to keep the bake tender.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and flavour, and helps the onion brown lightly.
Onion
Softened by frying, it adds sweetness and savoury depth.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat. Pulling the dish too early leaves a runny centre, while overbaking makes the eggs tight and rubbery.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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