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Plain Puffy Omelet
1/3 Cupful Boiling Water 1/8 Teaspoonful Pepper 1 1/2 Teaspoonfuls Salt 1 Tablespoonful Snowdrift Separate the eggs, beat the yolks till lemon colored, and add the seasonings and boiling water. Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold the yolk mixture into them. In the meantime, heat a goodsized frying pan and melt the Snowdrift in it. Turn the omelet mixture into this and cook it gently, lifting it around the edges with a knife to allow the uncooked portions to precipitate. When the omelet seems solidified, allow it to brown on the bottom, then place it in the oven to "set" the top. Cut at right angles to the handle, fold over, and transfer to a platter by means of a pancake turner.
A soufflé-style omelet from a shortening manufacturer's promotional cookbook. The ingredient list as printed omits the eggs themselves — the quantities given (1/3 cup water, 1 tablespoon fat) suit four to six eggs.
- Missing eggsThe printed list gives seasonings and fat but no eggs, an obvious omission in the original. The quantities suggest something in the range of four to six; the recipe specifies only a "goodsized frying pan."
- SnowdriftA cottonseed-oil shortening, the reason this book exists. Substitute an equal amount of butter or a neutral oil; nothing about the method depends on the shortening.
- Boiling waterThe hot water turns to steam in the pan and helps lift the omelet, alongside the beaten whites. Add it to the yolks in a thin stream while whisking so they do not scramble.
- Salt quantity"1/2 Teaspoonfuls" is a typesetting slip; read it as half a teaspoon.
- FoldingFold the yolk mixture into the whites in two or three additions with a spatula, stopping while a few streaks remain. Overworking here is what turns a puffy omelet into a flat one.
- "Precipitate"An odd usage meaning simply run down and underneath. Lift the set edge and tilt the pan so loose batter reaches the hot surface — but do this sparingly, or you deflate the foam.
- Oven finishThe original gives no temperature. A moderate oven, around 350F for about five minutes, or a minute under a broiler, will do it; the top should be just set and dry, not browned.
- Cutting"Cut at right angles to the handle" means scoring the omelet across its middle, perpendicular to the pan handle, so it folds cleanly without cracking. Score about halfway through.
- YieldThe original gives no yield; on the assumed egg count it makes two main-course servings, or three or four alongside other dishes. Puffy omelets collapse quickly off the heat, so plate immediately.
Snowdrift was a cottonseed-oil shortening produced by the Southern Cotton Oil Company, and cookbooks like this one were advertising in the form of a kitchen manual — recipes call for the product by name, capitalized. Cottonseed oil had been a cheap by-product of the Southern cotton crop before it was worked into a solid fat that could stand in for lard and butter, and the promotional cookbook was one way of teaching cooks what to do with the new ingredient. The puffy or soufflé omelet itself is older than the shortening and was a standard test of a cook in nineteenth-century American and English books, distinguished from the "plain" or French omelet by the separated and beaten whites; the boiling-water trick adds steam to the foam and produces an even higher rise.