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Breakfast

Omelette a LA Bonne-femme

A French-style omelette with bacon, boiled potato, bread crust, parsley, chives, and tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Omelette a LA Bonne-femme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and beat for five minutes.

  2. Add the parsley, chives, salt, and pepper.

  3. Cut the bacon and bread crust into small squares.

Cook the omelette

  1. Melt butter in a frying pan and fry the bacon until slightly brown.

  2. Add the bread crust and potato, tossing for a few minutes.

  3. Pour in the egg mixture and stir gently with a fork over medium heat for two minutes.

  4. Fold the omelet in half and hold it at an angle over the heat for one minute to lightly color it.

Serve

  1. Place a hot dish in your left hand and quickly turn the pan over to transfer the omelet to the center of the dish.

  2. Serve hot with tomato sauce poured around the 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Potato + chivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together611 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  5. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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, holding the filling together.
Bacon
Adds savory flavour and fat, and browns in the pan to add aroma.
Potato
Adds bulk and a soft, tender texture to the filling.
Breakfast roll
Adds body and absorbs some of the fat and egg, giving a softer bite.

The step that matters

Folding and turning the omelette out of the pan. Stirring too hard or cooking too long makes the eggs dry and tough, and an overcooked base will crack when folded. Keeping the heat moderate and the omelette still while it sets keeps it tender and intact.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, potato, parsley, chive, pepper, butter, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, potato, parsley, chive, pepper, butter, sauce. 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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