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Savory Omelette

A quick egg omelette flavored with salt, parsley, and optional onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Parsley and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,843 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Savory Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs with salt until well combined.

  2. Stir in the chopped parsley and grated onion if using.

  3. Heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat and add a little butter or oil.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the egg mixture into the skillet and cook until the edges set.

  2. Gently lift the edges with a spatula and let the uncooked eggs flow underneath.

  3. Once mostly set, fold the omelette 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. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + oniontop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,333 recipes

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

Egg and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,333 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 a tender structure as they cook, forming the body of the omelette.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma and a little color to the eggs.
Grated onion
Adds savory sharpness and moisture to the eggs.

The step that matters

Lifting the edges and letting the uncooked egg flow underneath. Egg proteins set as heat reaches them, so moving the liquid egg to the hot pan surface lets it cook evenly. If the heat is too high or the eggs are left still, the bottom browns and toughens before the top sets.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, parsley. 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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