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Omelet with Parsley

A simple egg omelet flavored with parsley, salt, pepper, and flour, cooked in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Omelet with Parsley

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs well in a bowl.

  2. Add salt, white pepper, flour, and chopped parsley; mix thoroughly.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a skillet and add butter.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the hot skillet.

  3. Cook until set, then fold the omelet and serve on a hot dish covered with a folded napkin.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. White pepper + parsleytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

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

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide the structure that sets into the body of the omelet.
Flour
Adds a little body, helping the omelet hold together and stay tender.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and keeps the eggs from sticking to the hot skillet.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma and a little color to the eggs.

The step that matters

Cook until set, then fold. Egg proteins set with heat, so cooking gently until just set keeps the omelet tender. Overcooking makes eggs tough and dry, and folding while the surface is still runny can tear it.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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