Well, this was an eventful and life changing experience. Will maybe not life changing but it has definitely taught me a great new way to make an omelette. I've been thinking about this one for over a month - Julia Child's omelettes didn't sound, or look, like the omelettes I am used to. You know what I mean -- beat some eggs, pour them into a pan and let the mixture firm up a bit, then add the filling. Ham, cheese, peppers, or whatever tickles your fancy. Then there's Julia's basic omelette -- it starts off the same but the only ingredient is...egg! Oh, of course one has to add some fresh parsely at the end. Really? A parsley omelette?
Even though I may be a bit techno challenged, I do know how to use YouTube and I came across a video of Julia making an omelette. Actually, I came across a couple. So here we were this morning debating what to have for breakfast and I decided to let my little girl, Kathryn, be the guinea pig and try my first "French" omelette attempt. I figured if it worked, and she liked it, and didn't keel over in 10 minutes then it would be safe for me to try. Well, it did, she did, she didn't, so I did.
Here's the magic for this type of omelette -- as Julia would explain, French omelettes are a bit more moist than a traditional American style omelette. Believe me, try it and you'll like it (probably). It starts off pretty normal -- crack two eggs into a mixing bowl (ooooooo, there's a whole 'nother post -- for the first time I successfully cracked the eggs using only one hand! Video will follow eventually). Add a tablespoon or so of water, a pinch of salt, and some pepper. Beat the eggs until uniformly mixed but not too frothy. Then comes the different part...
The trick is using a hot non-stick frying pan with curved edges about 2" high. The pan needs to be much hotter than normally used for an omelette. At a blop of butter (that's a technical measurement -- about 3/16" thick square cut from one of those sticks of butter) and get it hot and sizzly in the pan. Then add about a tablespoon of water. Yes, water, not milk. Yes, it is a non-stick pan but the butter is about the flavor and not the stickiness. As Julia said: "If you have a problem with butter, then use cream." Remember, this is about French food, not health food. Moving on, once the butter is bubbly hot the eggs get dumped in and swirled around to make an even layer on the pan.
Now the magic happens, and it happens reallllllllly fast. Like, really fast. I'm not kidding. Time from pouring the eggs into the pan until finished omelette goes onto the plate is about 30 seconds. No joke. I still can't believe it! You're going to love this if you're cooking for a big family, or a bunch of friends. You'll love it even if you're cooking for a bunch of strangers! You can actually cook a bunch of omelettes and everyone can eat together with everyone's food still being hot. Well, as I was saying, as the eggs form a bit of a skin you want to quickly put in your ingredients. Yep, if you want the original from Julia you can stick with just parsley but she does go on and describe other ingredients (cheese, potato, ham, sardines [okay, I'm just kidding about the sardines but you could be the first to make a French Sardine omelette]) so today I went with grated cheese. I wasn't a purist today, I didn't freshly grate some cheese -- sorry Julia, I used a bag of grated cheddar but I'm pretty sure it was better than sardines.
Lest I get to distracted during the fast part -- so we've dumped in the eggs and as it forms a skin we added our ingredients. Verrrrry important to put the ingredients on the middle of the eggs but offset a bit towards the pan's handle. Here comes the fun part - firmly grasp the pan's handle and flick the eggs towards you. As you do so, the top edge of the eggs will flip over the middle of the eggs. One more good flip, two if you are wimpy, and the eggs continue to roll over themselves and voila! You have an omelette. Carefully slide it onto a plate and garnish with some fresh parsley (I cheated again, no fresh parsley left so I used parsley freshly taken out of the container). The flipping takes some practice - but I did it without practicing. A Julia Child video demonstrating the technique recommends using a pan with dried beans that you can practice flipping. Me practice?!? Never, that takes away the adventure. Well, I did practice -- that's what Kathryn was for.
This was fun and amazingly quick. I immediately made a second omelette for myself (carefully watching Kathryn for any ill effects) and I'm still alive to write about it. The photos are of the first attempt!
Eggs are a wonderful thing. Unlike Julie, in the film "Julie and Julia" who'd never previously eaten an egg, I've had eggs a lot. Learning to scramble them using the French method is a post I'll put up soon (that I did earlier for the family) -- I've never been a big fan of scrambled eggs but the French method of cooking them produces a silky custardy type of egg. Just a teaser, but that's something you can look forward to. Be warned, however, scrambled eggs are kind of the opposite of the omelette. French omelettes, unlike American style, cook super fast. French scrambled eggs, unlike American style, cook reallllllllly slow. Stay tuned!
In the meantime, Bon Apetit!
YUM!
Omelette perfection.