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Receipt for the Common Omelette

A simple omelette made with eggs, salt, onion or parsley, shallot, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,677 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Receipt for the Common Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and beat them well with a fork.

  2. Add the salt, onion or parsley, and minced shallot to the eggs and mix well.

Cook and serve

  1. In a frying pan, melt half of the butter.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and stir until it begins to set.

  3. Turn up the edges and cook until golden brown.

  4. To serve, place a plate over the omelette and flip the pan upside down.

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. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Shallot + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into a structure that holds the omelette together as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the omelette brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Stir until it begins to set, then stop stirring. Stirring while the eggs are setting keeps curds small and tender. Once the base begins to firm, leaving it still lets the bottom brown and the omelette hold its shape when turned out.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, onion, shallot, 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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