Skip to main content
Breakfast

Omelet

A cooked egg mixture with herbs, spices, and optional ham or tongue, folded and served.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and shallot 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 ↓

Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, flour, parsley, green onions, shallot, pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  2. In a small frying pan, melt butter over medium heat.

  3. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and cook until the bottom is golden brown.

  4. Carefully flip the omelet to cook the other side until golden.

  5. Fold the omelet in half and serve. Add ham or tongue if desired.

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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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, holding it together.
Milk
Adds moisture, keeping the eggs tender rather than dry and firm.
Flour
Thickens the egg mixture slightly, giving a more stable, less watery texture.
Butter
Coats the pan to prevent sticking and adds richness and golden browning.

The step that matters

Cook the bottom until golden, then flip carefully. Eggs set quickly over medium heat. Cooking gently until the base is golden gives a firm surface that can be flipped without tearing, while the inside stays tender.

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, flour, parsley, onion, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, parsley, onion, pepper, nutmeg. 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.

More omelette recipes

Cheese 71Ham 64French 61Sweet 59Herb 54Bread 49 See all 137 →

You might also like

Rice GruelRice Gruel28 recipesPeptoned Milk GruelPeptoned Milk Gruel9 recipes