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Tortilla with Parsley

A small egg tortilla flavored with parsley, onion, salt, pepper, and butter, topped with fried parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Tortilla with Parsley

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the egg mixture

  1. Beat the eggs well in a bowl.

  2. Add the chopped parsley, chopped onion, salt, and pepper to the eggs.

Make the tortillas

  1. Melt 1 ounce of butter in a sauté pan for each tortilla.

  2. Pour one-third of the egg mixture into the pan and cook to form a tortilla.

  3. Roll the tortilla tightly and cut it in half.

  4. Repeat for the remaining two tortillas.

Fry and serve

  1. Cover each tortilla with egg and bread crumbs.

  2. Melt the remaining butter in the pan until boiling.

  3. Fry the tortillas until golden brown.

  4. Serve with plenty of fried parsley.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the filling and set into the tender structure of each tortilla.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the tortillas brown in the pan.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when the tortillas are fried.
Parsley
Contributes fresh, herbal aroma and colour to the tortillas.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg layer in the pan. If the heat is too high, the outside of the egg browns and burns before the centre sets. Moderate heat lets the egg cook through evenly, so the tortilla can be rolled without cracking.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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