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Savoury Omelet

A quick egg omelet flavored with butter, salt, pepper, parsley, and shalot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Savoury Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and whip them.

  2. Add salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Finely chop the parsley and shalot, then add to the egg mixture.

Cook the omelette

  1. Melt the butter in an omelet or frying pan until hot.

  2. Pour in the egg mixture and stir quickly with a spoon.

  3. Shake the pan to prevent sticking, then turn the omelet towards the edge of the pan.

  4. Flip it over for a second, then transfer to a hot dish.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 omelette as they cook, giving body and a tender texture.
Butter
Coats the pan to prevent sticking and adds richness and flavour to the omelette.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma and a little colour to the egg mixture.
Shalot
Adds a mild onion-like sharpness and aroma to the egg mixture.

The step that matters

Stir the eggs quickly once poured into the hot pan. Eggs set quickly on contact with hot fat. Stirring keeps small curds forming evenly so the omelette stays tender rather than rubbery or browned in patches.

“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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