Recipe: French Omelette
Claudia has prepared this plain french omelette with mushrooms at home during August Lockdown 2021.
Escoffier described the omelette as scrambled eggs held together in a coagulated envelope, says Harold McGee in On Food and Cooking. "If scrambled eggs demand patience, a good omelette requires panache - a 2 or 3 egg omelette cooks in less than a minute". The moist, silky consistency is known as baveuse.
Serves 1-2 people
Recipe: Plain French Omelette
Ingredients
2 - 3 eggs
10g butter
Salt and pepper
1 tablespoon cream/water (optional)
Non-stick frypan - works best
Method
- Break the eggs into a bowl and whisk with a fork until foamy and no longer streaky. Mix in the seasoning and cream/water.
- Melt the butter in an omelette pan or non-stick frypan and swirl it around so that the bottom and sides are coated. When foaming, pour in the egg mixture.
- Hold the pan handle and move it gently back and forth over the heat. At the same time, using your fork, move the mixture slowly, scraping up large creamy curds of egg mixture. As you do this some of the liquid egg from the middle of the omelette will run to the sides of the pan. Tilt the pan to help this process. Leave over the heat until the bottom has set and the top is creamy. Remove from the heat.
- With a fork or palette knife fold the side nearest the handle to the centre of the omelette and then tip the whole omelette over onto a warmed plate with the folded edges on the underside. Alternatively, fold the omelette in two and slide it onto the plate.
Prior to folding, you can add a filling to lift the flavour of the omelette. Classic combinations include:
- Saute mushrooms
- Blanched spinach (with cream)
- Diced ham
- A combination of freshly chopped herbs such as chives, chervil, parsley, tarragon