Name: Another Way to Make Omelet
Ingredients: 6 eggs; 3 ounces butter; grated ham (or minced salt herring); pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; nutmeg to taste; chopped chives; chopped parsley

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Another Way to Make Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Beat and strain the eggs.
Heat the butter in a pan.
Mix in the eggs, grated ham, pepper, salt, nutmeg, chives, and parsley.
Fry until the omelet is light brown.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,150 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,062 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Nutmeg + chivetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together300 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Set into the omelet's structure as the proteins coagulate when heated.
Butter: Adds richness and flavour, and helps prevent sticking and promote light browning.
Grated ham: Adds savoury, salty flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Frying the omelet. Egg proteins set quickly, so high heat can make the surface brown and toughen before the centre is cooked. Moderate heat lets the eggs set gently and evenly.

Swap the chive

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

Shallotfits about as well
Carrotfits about as well
Spinachfits about as well
Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, ham, pepper, nutmeg, parsley. 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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Another Way to Make Omelet