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Savoury Omelet

A quick egg-based dish with milk, flour, parsley, onion, and butter, cooked in a frying pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Savoury Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Mix the flour with a little milk until smooth, then add to the eggs.

  3. Stir in the parsley, onion, salt, and pepper.

Cook the omelette

  1. Heat the butter or dripping in a frying pan.

  2. Pour in the egg mixture and cook gradually.

  3. When browned underneath, cut into pieces and turn.

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

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Set into the structure of the omelette as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the milk and eggs, giving the omelette a softer, more stable body.
Milk
Loosens the batter and adds moisture to the finished omelette.
Butter or dripping
Fat for the pan that prevents sticking and adds browning and flavour.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma once softened in the egg mixture.

The step that matters

Cook gradually over gentle heat. Cooking the egg mixture slowly lets it set evenly without scorching the underside before the top is firm. High heat makes the base burn while the centre stays runny, so the omelette is harder to turn cleanly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, parsley, 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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