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Omelette Aux Fines Herbes

A French omelette flavored with parsley, tarragon, and sweet herbs, cooked in butter and served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Omelette Aux Fines Herbes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and beat them well.

  2. Add the chopped parsley, tarragon, and sweet herbs to the eggs, then season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Melt the butter in an omelet pan over medium heat.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and stir with a fork over high heat.

  2. When the eggs begin to firm up, roll the omelet into an oval shape.

  3. Allow it to brown lightly, then turn it onto an oval dish.

  4. Serve with a little brown sauce or gravy, and garnish with parsley.

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 + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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, giving it body and a tender texture.
Butter
Adds richness and helps prevent the eggs from sticking to the pan while browning lightly.
Parsley
Contributes fresh, green aroma and flavour to the eggs.
Tarragon
Adds a distinctive anise-like aroma and flavour to the eggs.

The step that matters

Stirring over high heat, then rolling as the eggs firm. Eggs cooked on high heat can turn tough and rubbery if overcooked, so stir only until they begin to set and roll the omelette while the centre is still slightly moist.

Swap the tarragon

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

  1. Tarragonthe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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