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Omelette Aux Fines Herbes

A French-style omelette flavored with finely chopped parsley and tarragon, cooked in butter.

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 until well mixed.

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

Cook and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a hot omelet pan.

  2. Pour in the eggs and stir in the center until it 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 that forms the body of the omelette.
Butter
Adds richness and helps prevent the eggs from sticking to the pan.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green flavour to the beaten eggs.
Tarragon
Adds a distinct aniseed-like aroma to the eggs.

The step that matters

Stir the centre until it begins to set, then roll. Eggs set quickly over a hot pan, so stirring while they are still liquid keeps the curds fine and tender. Rolling too early or after overcooking leaves the omelette dry and rubbery as the proteins tighten.

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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