Scrambling to Make an Omelette

L'Omelette Brouille

Can't decide whether you want scrambled eggs (Oeufs Brouilles) or an omelette (L'Omelette Roulee)? Lucky for us, Julia has a solution -- LOmelette Brouille (scrambled omelette)! I've read, and reread this recipe for awhile now and thought it just sounded odd. This morning, as I was trying to think of something I could quickly make for breakfast I'd considered making scrambled eggs or an omelette (now that I can do it properly -- well, not consistently. I did try making a rolled omelette yesterday and let's just say that it was not a huge success. A bit brown and my flipping didn't work -- both because I used a pan too small for the amount of eggs, but that's a different story). If I ended up making a repeat of one of those types of eggs then I wouldn't have anything to write about, right? On to the scrambled omelette...

Let me start by explaining that the photo is not a fried iguana. I didn't notice the resemblance until I attached the photo. It actually looks more like an iguana than many of the sketches I've made when playing Pictionary -- it has a head, legs, and a tail (that's apparently in the process of detaching). Since I'm discussing the photo, you can tell that I'm still committed to posting photos of my first attempts, successful or not. I almost did not keep that commitment as I was finishing cooking this omelette because it wasn't looking like an omelette at all. Much to my surprise, Julia seems to know best! When I flipped it from the pan onto the plate it actually looked much more omelette like! I could have used Julia's other trick of smushing it back together around the edges using a fork to pretty things up but I thought I'd leave it as is so you'd get the idea.

As with a rolled omelette, this technique proceeds verrrrrrry quickly (about 30 seconds from the time the eggs are poured into the pan until it is done) so you need to have everything ready to go. First the eggs are beaten with any spices you want (pepper, salt, etc.) and the pan is heated on the stove's highest setting. One tablespoon is added and swirled around until the entire surface is coated. As soon as the butter was done foaming and about to turn color, the eggs were dumped in. With my left hand the pan was slid rapidly back and forth while the eggs were rapidly stirred around the bottom of the pan as they thickened. This only took about three or four seconds until they formed a light custardy layer. That's when I added the ingredients (cheese today).

Then the fun part came along. The pan was tilted to 45 degrees and the back of the fork was used to quickly gather the eggs at the far lip (the down side) of the pan, using the fork to make sure the lip of the eggs is not adhering to the pan. Here's the really interesting maneuver that seemed crazy, like Julia must have been having a bad day and took her aggression out on this recipe. The right hand fist was used to smack the handle of the tilted frying pan (watch out for your fingers)! My brain still hasn't wrapped around why this worked but hitting the handle caused the eggs to flip up on top of themselves and turned into an omelette! If I'd been a bit faster I'm sure it would have worked out even better while the eggs were a bit softer, but it really did work!

If you're going to try this at home, be sure to have everything ready (filling, fork, plate) before you get started. Julia wasn't kidding when she said "Less than 30 seconds of cooking." It happens fast!

Bon Appetit!

P.S. Did you know that a couple of strands of shredded cheese make a whole lot of smoke if they flip out of the pan and onto an electric burner on the highest heat setting?

P.P.S. No extra photos at the end of this post, it happened too fast to play photographer and chef at the same time.