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Omelette

A cooked egg mixture flavored with salt, pepper, optional parsley or cheese, fried in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Whisk the eggs lightly and swiftly in a bowl.

  2. Add salt, pepper, and any optional ingredients like parsley or cheese.

Cook

  1. Heat a frying pan and melt enough butter to cover the surface.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the pan, stirring gently with a wooden spoon.

  3. Once the omelette begins to set, stop stirring and gently shake the pan, lifting the edges with the spoon.

  4. Cook for about 4 minutes until the inside is set and the outside is a rich yellowish-brown.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 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 a structure as they cook, forming the body of the omelette.
Butter
Fat that coats the pan, prevents sticking, and browns the outside of the omelette.
Grated cheese
Adds richness and flavour, and melts into the filling as it cooks.

The step that matters

Stirring then stopping once the omelette begins to set. Stirring while the eggs are liquid creates small curds for a tender texture. Once the base starts to set, stopping lets a thin, even layer form that can be folded without tearing.

“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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