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The Savoury Omelette

A cooked egg omelette topped with melted butter, lime juice, shallot, parsley, and optional preserved tunny.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley 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 ↓

The Savoury Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix the eggs well.

Cook

  1. Cook the egg mixture in a hot pan until set.

  2. Transfer the omelette to a hot dish.

  3. Add melted butter, lime juice, shallot, and parsley on top.

  4. If using, add preserved tunny or your chosen substitute.

  5. Serve 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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Lime + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together547 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lime + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together258 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Butter + salmontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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.
Melted butter
Adds richness and a smooth, moist texture to the omelette.
Lime juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the eggs and butter.
Shallot
Adds mild savoury aroma and sweetness.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma.

The step that matters

Cook the egg mixture in a hot pan until set. Eggs set when their proteins coagulate with heat. If the pan is too cool, the omelette stays runny; if overcooked, it turns rubbery and dry.

Swap the lime

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, shallot, parsley, salmon):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Limethe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, shallot, parsley, salmon. 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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