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Savoury Omelet

A savoury omelet of whipped eggs with butter, parsley and shallot, cooked in a frying pan.

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

Savoury Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and whip them.

  2. Add salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Chop the parsley and shallot, then add to the egg mixture.

Cook the omelet

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan and sauté the shallot.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the pan, stirring quickly and shaking the pan to prevent sticking.

  3. Turn the omelet towards the edge of the pan, flip it for a second, and then place it on a hot dish.

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 + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped eggs set into the soft, tender structure of the omelet.
Butter
Fat that coats the pan, keeps the eggs from sticking and adds richness.
Shallot (in the method)
Adds a mild, sweet onion-like aroma that softens when sautéed in butter.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma and a little colour to the egg mixture.

The step that matters

Stirring and shaking the eggs in the pan. Moving the eggs keeps curds small and tender and stops them sticking and scorching on the hot surface. Letting them sit still can leave the bottom overcooked and the top runny.

“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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