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French Omelette

A quick omelette made with eggs, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

French Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

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

  2. Whisk the mixture briskly for a few minutes.

Cook and fold

  1. Heat the butter in a frying pan.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and fry quickly until the underside is light brown and the top is nearly set.

  3. Shake the pan and use a spatula to prevent sticking.

  4. Fold the omelette in thirds, turning one side over to the middle.

  5. Slip the omelette onto a hot dish with the rough edge first, allowing the folded part to roll over the unfolded part.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 when cooked, forming the body of the omelette.
Butter
Coats the pan to prevent sticking and adds richness and flavour.

The step that matters

Fry quickly while the mixture is still runny. High heat and constant shaking keep the eggs moving so they set into a tender layer. Overcooking toughens the proteins and makes the omelette dry and rubbery.

“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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