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To Make Omelets

A cooked egg mixture folded over, optionally flavored with herbs, meats, or sweet ingredients.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

To Make Omelets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the omelet

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and beat them well with salt.

  2. Melt butter or lard in a frying pan over medium heat.

  3. For a sweet omelet, mix cream, sugar, and nutmeg with the eggs before cooking.

  4. Pour the beaten eggs into the pan and cook until the bottom is a fine color, about 5-7 minutes.

  5. Do not turn the omelet; instead, fold it over with the browned side out when serving.

Serve

  1. Serve the sweet omelet with fine sugar sifted over it.

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

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

  2. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Veal + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together815 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Chive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 cook, giving it body and a tender texture.
Butter or lard
Fat in the pan that keeps the eggs from sticking and adds richness and browning.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, making the sweet omelet softer and more tender.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the sweet omelet, and sifted fine sugar on top gives a finishing sweetness.

The step that matters

Leave the omelet unturned while the bottom browns. Eggs set from the bottom up, so moving or turning the omelet too early breaks up the forming layer and tears it. Letting the base firm and brown gently keeps it whole and even.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, chive, pepper, ham, veal, truffle):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, chive, pepper, ham, veal, truffle. 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.

More omelet recipes

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