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Omelette Aux Fines Herbes

A French omelette flavored with parsley and tarragon, cooked in butter and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Omelette Aux Fines Herbes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the parsley and tarragon finely.

  2. Break the eggs into a bowl and beat them with a fork until well mixed.

  3. Stir in the chopped herbs and season with salt and pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt the butter in an omelet pan over high heat.

  2. Pour in the eggs and stir in the center until the mixture begins to set.

  3. Roll the omelet towards the handle of the pan to shape it into an oval.

  4. Turn it lightly over and remove from the heat.

  5. Transfer to a hot dish and 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. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a delicate structure as they cook, forming the body of the omelette.
Butter
Coats the pan so the omelette releases cleanly and adds richness.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green flavour and aroma to the eggs.
Tarragon
Contributes a distinct anise-like aroma to the herb mixture.

The step that matters

Stir in the center until the mixture begins to set. Stirring the centre keeps the curds small and tender while the edges set. If the eggs are left still too long, they over-coagulate and turn tough and rubbery, and the omelette cracks when rolled.

Swap the tarragon

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

  1. Tarragonthe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

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