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Omelette

A simple egg omelette with parsley, pepper, salt, butter, and shallot.

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 ↓

Omelette

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Keep a pan for omelettes only.

  2. Wipe the pan with a clean cloth.

  3. Beat the eggs for 2 seconds.

  4. Mix in the parsley, pepper, and salt.

  5. Rub the omelette pan with the shallot.

  6. Melt the butter over medium heat.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the egg mixture into the hot butter.

  2. Stir quickly with a wooden spoon.

  3. Shake the pan to prevent sticking.

  4. When the mixture thickens, raise the handle and let it brown on one side.

  5. Quickly turn the omelette over.

  6. Place it on a hot dish.

  7. 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 + 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. Pepper + shallottop 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. Butter + shallottop 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 the structure of the omelette as they heat, giving it body.
Butter
Coats the pan and adds richness, helping the omelette brown and release.
Shallot
Adds a mild aromatic onion flavour when rubbed over the pan.

The step that matters

Pour the egg mixture into the hot butter. Eggs cook best when the butter is hot but not burning. Pouring into hot fat sets the proteins quickly, keeping the omelette tender and preventing it from sticking or browning too much.

Swap the shallot

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

  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, pepper, butter. 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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