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Crab Omelette
Break six eggs in a basin, season with salt and pepper, and beat with a fork. Put two ounces of butter into an oval-shaped pan, and as soon as the butter melts pour in the eggs, stirring lightly with a fork. Add a due proportion of the finely-shredded flesh of a crab, with a touch of vinegar, a little more salt, a dust of cayenne, and a little very finely-minced parsley. When the omelette is half set toss or turn it until fully set. When it assumes a pale gold colour turn it out on the dish, and serve at once. Crayfish sauce is often served with this dish. Probable cost, 2s.
A six-egg omelette in the French manner, folded rather than baked, with picked crab folded through. The only real difficulty is heat control: the pan must be hot enough to set the eggs quickly but not so hot that the butter browns.
- The hinge: keep the crab cold and add it lateCrabmeat is already cooked. Fold it in once the eggs have begun to set, not while the pan is still cold, and take the omelette off while the centre is barely creamy. Held over the heat to "fully set" in the Victorian sense, both the eggs and the crab turn dry and fibrous.
- "A due proportion"The original gives no quantity. For six eggs, 4 to 6 oz (about 115-170 g) of picked white and brown meat is the useful range — roughly one dressed medium crab. Much more and the omelette will not hold together.
- The oval panThe recipe specifies an oval-shaped pan, a shape used for omelettes and one that shapes the finished roll. A 9- or 10-inch round non-stick or well-seasoned steel pan does the same job; the omelette will simply be a fatter cylinder.
- ButterTwo ounces (about 55 g) is generous by modern habit and will brown if the pan is too hot. Half that is enough in a non-stick pan; keep the heat at medium-high so the butter foams without colouring.
- Vinegar and cayenne"A touch" means well under a teaspoon — white wine vinegar or a squeeze of lemon does the same work of lifting the sweetness of the crab. Cayenne here is a seasoning dust, not a heat level.
- Crayfish sauceVictorian crayfish sauce was generally made with the pounded shells and flesh worked into butter, then combined with a melted-butter or white sauce base. A shellfish or crab bisque reduced with cream and butter, or simply a nut-brown butter with lemon, serves the same purpose.
- Yield and costSix eggs feed three as a light main course, or four at a larger meal. The "probable cost, 2s." is two shillings in pre-decimal British money, the kind of costing figure the book attaches throughout; it has no modern equivalent worth quoting.
This sits among the book's omelette variations, part of a Victorian enthusiasm for the French rolled omelette as a supper or luncheon dish — quick, showy and manageable in a household without a large kitchen staff. Crab suited that role because it came to market already boiled and needed only picking. The suggested crayfish sauce reflects the period's habit of pairing a shellfish dish with a sauce made from another shellfish, a practice drawn from French professional cookery; sauce écrevisses was a standing item in that repertoire. The vinegar and cayenne echo the seasonings used in English potted and dressed crab of the same era.