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Omelette a LA Francaise

A French omelette made with eggs, mushrooms, parsley, butter, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Francaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the omelette

  1. Whip the eggs for 5 minutes.

  2. Beat in the mushrooms and parsley, then season with pepper and salt.

  3. Melt the butter in an omelette pan over high heat.

  4. When the butter is very hot, pour in the egg mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook until set, then fold and serve immediately.

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

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

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a tender structure when cooked, forming the body of the omelette.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavour to the egg mixture.
Butter
Provides fat for cooking the eggs and adds rich flavour.

The step that matters

Pour the egg mixture into very hot butter. If the butter is not very hot, the eggs cook slowly and can turn dry or grainy before they set. Hot butter sets the eggs quickly and keeps the omelette tender.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mushroom, butter, pepper. 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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