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Omelette Au Jambon

A French-style omelette with ham, onion, parsley, chives, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Au Jambon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks until creamy.

  2. Add milk, flour, ham, onion, parsley, chives, salt, and pepper, then mix until smooth.

  3. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Cook

  1. Melt butter in a medium-sized pan over medium heat.

  2. Pour the mixture into the pan.

  3. Cook until set.

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. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Flour + chivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide structure, and the whites trap air that lightens the omelette as it sets.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the omelette tender rather than dry.
Flour
Helps thicken the batter slightly so it holds together when cooked.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour throughout the omelette.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and helps the omelette brown lightly in the pan.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. The whites hold air that makes the omelette light. Stirring or mixing vigorously at this point deflates the foam, leaving a denser, flatter result.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, flour, ham, parsley, chive, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, ham, parsley, chive, 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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