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Omelette Aux Fines Herbes

A French omelette flavored with finely chopped parsley and chives, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Omelette Aux Fines Herbes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. Add pepper, salt, parsley, and chives, mixing thoroughly.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the mixture in a hot skillet until set.

  2. 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + chivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + chivetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,624 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a structure when heated, forming the body of the omelette.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green flavour and aroma to the eggs.
Chives
Add a mild onion-like flavour and aroma to the eggs.

The step that matters

Fry the mixture in a hot skillet until set. Egg proteins coagulate as they heat, so a hot pan sets the eggs quickly and keeps the omelette tender. Overcooking at high heat makes the eggs tough and dry.

Swap the chive

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, 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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