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Another Way to Make Omelet

A savory omelet made with oysters, eggs, parsley, and mushroom catsup, lightly fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,062 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Another Way to Make Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters and parsley

  1. Remove gills from oysters and parboil them with white peppercorns.

  2. Strain and chop the oysters.

  3. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  4. Parboil and mince the parsley.

Make the omelet

  1. Mix the oysters, eggs, parsley, nutmeg, salt, and mushroom catsup together.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan and fry the mixture lightly.

  3. Hold the omelet over the fire for a minute or two before serving.

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 + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

  4. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Nutmeg + mushroomtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,988 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set and bind the oysters and herbs into a tender, cohesive omelet.
Oysters
Provide the main savoury flavour and texture of the omelet.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the omelet brown lightly in the pan.
Mushroom catsup
Adds savoury, umami depth to the egg and oyster mixture.

The step that matters

Frying the mixture lightly in butter. Eggs cook quickly and turn rubbery if overheated, so gentle heat keeps the omelet tender while the butter adds richness and light browning.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, egg, parsley, mushroom, 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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