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A Plain Omelette

A simple egg omelette cooked with milk, parsley, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

A Plain Omelette

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and add milk, parsley, pepper, and salt.

  2. Beat the mixture gently for a few seconds.

  3. Heat a clean omelette pan and wipe it with paper.

Cook the omelette

  1. Add butter to the pan and let it froth without browning.

  2. Pour in the egg mixture.

  3. Cook over medium heat, scraping the bottom until it begins to set.

  4. Gather the omelette to one side.

  5. Hold it over the heat to brown.

  6. Brown the other side before serving 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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the cooked eggs tender rather than dry.
Butter or salad oil
Coats the pan to prevent sticking and adds richness and flavour.

The step that matters

Cook over medium heat, scraping the bottom until it begins to set. Heat that is too high sets and browns the bottom before the top sets, leaving a tough, overcooked omelette. Gentle heat and scraping keep the curds small and the texture soft.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, 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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