Beat 6 yolks of eggs with a pinch of salt; add the whites beaten stiff and mix with a tablespoonful of cream. Beat 2 ounces of butter in an omelet pan; add the beaten eggs and shake the pan to spread evenly. Have ready some finely minced ham. Spread on half of the omelet, fold and serve at once on a hot dish.
A soufflé-style folded omelet: the whites go in beaten stiff, which is what separates this from a modern French rolled omelet. Everything depends on cooking it gently and getting it to the plate fast.
- The hinge: low heat, short timeA whipped-white omelet collapses if it browns or overcooks. Keep the pan at medium-low and take it off when the top is still moist, about 3 to 4 minutes; it will finish setting on the hot dish.
- Fold the whites, do not beat themThe instruction says "add the whites beaten stiff and mix," but stirring them in flattens the foam. Fold in two or three additions with a spatula until barely combined.
- "Beat 2 ounces of butter in an omelet pan"Read this as heat; "beat" may be a slip, though it stands as printed. Two ounces is 4 tablespoons, generous for one omelet; 1 to 2 tablespoons is enough in a modern nonstick or well-seasoned pan.
- Pan sizeThe recipe gives none. Six eggs plus stiff whites suit a wide pan, roughly 10 inches; in a smaller one the omelet sits deeper and the underside may color before the center sets.
- The hamNo quantity is given. About 1/2 to 3/4 cup of finely minced cooked ham suits six eggs. Warming it first helps, since cold ham dropped into a light omelet chills the center.
- CreamA tablespoonful of cream; a rich cream is the likely intent. It is there for richness, not volume, and can be left out without changing the structure.
- YieldServes 3 as a light main course, or 4 as part of a larger breakfast.
Books arranged as a dish a day with a nationality attached to each were published in this period; they let a household cook claim variety without straying far from the ingredients on hand. The "Irish" label here rests on the ham. The technique itself is French and older than the label — the omelette soufflée, with whites whipped separately for lift, appears in continental cookery writing before this book, and by 1900 the distinction between a "puffy" or "foamy" omelet and the plain kind was current in American and British manuals. What the recipe records is a period assumption that a cook would separate six eggs by hand and whip the whites without comment.