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American Omelet

A fluffy omelet made with bread crumbs, milk, chives, parsley, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

American Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Boil the bread crumbs in the milk.

  2. Add the chopped chives and parsley, then stir in the egg yolks.

  3. Let the mixture thicken without boiling, and season with salt and pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Whip the egg whites to a foam and gently mix them with the yolk mixture.

  2. Melt butter in an omelet pan and fry the omelet as usual.

  3. Garnish with fried 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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

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

  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 crumbs
Thicken the milk into a soft base that gives the omelet body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help it set into a tender, custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Whipped to a foam, they trap air that lightens the omelet and helps it rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, and helps the bread crumbs swell into a thick base.

The step that matters

Let the mixture thicken without boiling. Egg yolks curdle and turn grainy when overheated, so the base should thicken gently over low heat rather than come to a boil.

Swap the chive

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, parsley, 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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