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Omelet Aux Fine Herbs

A quick omelet flavored with mustard, cream, chives, parsley, and salt, cooked in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 587 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Omelet Aux Fine Herbs

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, mix the eggs, mustard, cream, chives, parsley, and salt.

  2. In a frying or omelet pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

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

  4. If using an omelet pan, turn the omelet over from the edges when set. If using a frying pan, scrape the omelet with a fork as it sets.

  5. Allow it to stand for a moment to brown, then transfer to 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. Mustard + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together587 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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 omelet as they heat, forming its body.
Butter
Coats the pan to keep the egg from sticking and adds richness and browning.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the cooked eggs tender rather than dry.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, tangy flavour that cuts the richness of the eggs and butter.

The step that matters

Pour the egg mixture into the pan, stirring and shaking to prevent sticking.. Eggs stick and scorch when they set on a hot or unprotected surface. Constant stirring keeps curds small and tender, while shaking keeps the base loose so the omelet folds cleanly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, chive, parsley, butter. 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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