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Cheese Omelette

A lightly cooked egg dish with cheese, butter, milk, and seasonings, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Cheese Omelette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the egg yolks and whites separately.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Melt the butter in a large frying pan over low heat.

Make the omelette

  1. In a bowl, combine the milk, egg yolks, and 2 whole beaten eggs.

  2. Pour the mixture into the pan and cook slowly, watching carefully.

  3. Before it is fully set, sprinkle the grated cheese on top.

  4. Pour the beaten egg whites over the cheese and fold gently.

Serve

  1. Slide the omelette onto a warm platter and garnish with minced parsley.

  2. 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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 as their proteins coagulate, and the whipped whites add lightness.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and helps keep the omelette from sticking to the pan.
Milk
Adds moisture and keeps the eggs soft and tender as they cook.
Cheese
Adds savoury flavour and melts into the omelette, giving it richness.

The step that matters

Cook slowly over low heat. Egg proteins set gently at lower temperatures. Too much heat makes the eggs tough and rubbery, and can scorch the butter before the omelette is ready.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Cinnamonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, butter, milk, cheese. 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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