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Omelette

A cooked egg mixture seasoned with salt and pepper, optionally flavored with parsley, cheese, ham, tongue, anchovies, oysters, or preserve.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Heat a pan and add butter until melted.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and cook until the edges are set.

  2. Gently lift the edges with a spatula to allow uncooked egg to flow underneath.

  3. When the omelette is golden brown and the inside is soft, fold it in half.

  4. Transfer to a hot dish and serve immediately, optionally garnished with parsley or cheese.

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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  4. Ham + oystertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Egg + oystertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 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 by heat to form the omelette's structure and body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps prevent the egg from sticking to the pan.

The step that matters

Lifting the edges while the egg cooks. Egg proteins set as they heat. Lifting the edges lets liquid egg flow underneath to cook, keeping the omelette tender rather than rubbery and overcooked.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, butter, cheese, ham, oyster):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, butter, cheese, ham, oyster. 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 →

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