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A Small Savoury Omelet

A small omelet made with eggs, butter, parsley, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

A Small Savoury Omelet

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and add the parsley, pepper, and salt.

  2. Beat the eggs lightly.

  3. Melt the butter in a small omelet pan over high heat.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the eggs into the pan.

  2. Shake and stir the mixture vigorously until it begins to set.

  3. When some of the egg is set and the rest is still liquid, tilt the pan and draw the egg to one side.

  4. Leave it to set for a few seconds, then tilt the pan again and fold the omelet to the other side.

  5. Once the outside is set, turn it onto a hot dish and serve immediately.

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 + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set by heat to form the omelet's structure and soft, tender texture.
Butter
Coats the pan so the omelet releases cleanly and adds richness.

The step that matters

Shake and stir the mixture vigorously until it begins to set. Constant agitation breaks up the egg into small curds so it cooks evenly and stays tender. If it sits still, the bottom overcooks and toughens before the top sets.

“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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