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The Omelette

A savory omelette made with cold cooked salmon, herring roes, shallot, parsley, eggs, butter, and a touch of vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

The Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Finely mince the salmon and herring roes together with shallot and parsley.

  2. In a pan, toss the mixture in butter for a few minutes.

Make and cook the omelette

  1. In a bowl, mix the cooked mixture with the eggs until well combined.

  2. Cook the egg mixture in a hot pan until just set.

Serve

  1. Transfer the omelette to a hot dish with melted butter, vinegar, shallot, and 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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Salmon + roetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Roe + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together243 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Roe + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together442 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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 in the hot pan.
Herring roes
Provide rich, savoury richness and a firm, granular texture when minced and cooked.
Salmon
Adds savoury flavour and a tender, flaky texture to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and carries flavour when tossing the filling and finishing the dish.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg mixture until just set. Eggs turn firm and rubbery when overcooked, since their proteins tighten under sustained heat. Removing the omelette while it is still slightly moist keeps it tender.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, roe, shallot, egg, butter, vinegar):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, roe, shallot, egg, butter, vinegar. 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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