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An Omelette

A cooked egg dish with parsley, optional oysters, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,062 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

An Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Make the omelette

  1. Beat the eggs well and mix in the chopped parsley.

  2. Heat butter in a pan and pour in the egg mixture.

  3. Cook until set, then fold the omelette in half.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with gravy poured on top.

  2. For an oyster omelette, add chopped oysters, salt, nutmeg, and parsley to the beaten eggs before cooking.

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 + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  2. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Oyster + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Egg + oystertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  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 to form the structure of the omelette as they cook.
Butter
Fats the pan so the egg mixture cooks without sticking and adds richness.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, green herbal aroma to the eggs.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour to the oyster variation.

The step that matters

Cook until set, then fold the omelette in half. Cooking over heat only until the egg is set keeps the omelette tender. Overcooking tightens the proteins, making it dry and rubbery, and folding too early can tear the still-liquid centre.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, parsley, butter, oyster, ketchup, ham. 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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