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Savoury Omelette

A quick omelette made with eggs, parsley, shallot, butter, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Savoury Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs with the parsley, shallot, pepper, and salt.

  2. Melt the butter in an omelette pan.

  3. Pour in the egg mixture.

Cook and fold

  1. Stir vigorously over medium heat until it begins to set.

  2. Stir the mixture to one half of the pan.

  3. Leave it for a moment.

  4. Loosen the edges with a knife.

  5. Fold the omelette over.

  6. Cook the other side until golden.

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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

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

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

  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 tender structure when heated, forming the body of the omelette.
Butter
Adds richness and helps keep the omelette from sticking to the pan.
Shallot
Adds mild aromatic sweetness that softens as it cooks in the egg.

The step that matters

Stir vigorously over medium heat until it begins to set. Constant stirring breaks up the egg into small curds so it cooks evenly and stays tender. Stirring too little or using too much heat can make the surface tough and the inside runny or uneven.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, parsley, butter, 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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