Home › The Principles of Cookery › Lobster Omelet
Lobster Omelet
Remove the flesh from a small freshly-boiled lobster, and mince it up finely. Whisk up four eggs, strain them, add the lobster and pepper and salt to taste, and whisk again to mix thoroughly. Dissolve two ounces of butter in an omelet-pan, and pour in the mixture. Place over a moderate fire, and stir one way until the omelet is set. Turn it on to a very hot dish, fold it in two, and serve at once.
A plain French-style omelet with minced lobster folded through the egg rather than laid in as a filling. The whole thing takes under five minutes at the stove, so have the dish warming before the butter goes in.
- The hinge: stop while it looks underdoneThe omelet should be set but still soft on top when it leaves the pan; carry-over heat finishes it on the hot dish, which the recipe specifies should be "very hot". An omelet cooked until firm in the pan will be dry by the time it reaches the table.
- Lobster quantityThe recipe says only "a small" boiled lobster, so the amount of picked meat is left to the cook. A modest quantity is easier to fold and keeps the egg from breaking apart.
- Two ounces of butterThat is 4 tablespoons. In a modern nonstick or well-seasoned pan, 1 to 1½ tablespoons is enough; the full amount will pool and fry rather than coat.
- "Moderate fire"Medium heat on a gas burner, or medium-low on electric. Too high and the base browns before the centre sets.
- Straining the eggsNot fussiness. Pushing the beaten eggs through a sieve breaks up the ropy white and the chalazae, so the finished omelet is uniform. Worth doing.
- Omelet-panA shallow pan with sloping sides, 8 to 9 inches across for four eggs. Anything wider spreads the mixture too thin to fold.
- YieldServes two as a light main course, or four as one course in a longer meal.
- If using cooked lobster from the counterChilled picked meat added to raw egg will cool the mixture and slow setting; let it come to room temperature, and pat off any brine or liquid so the omelet does not weep.
The instruction to "stir one way" is a stock phrase in period cookery writing, applied to everything from custards to omelets; it is often said to reflect a kitchen belief that reversing direction would curdle or toughen a mixture, though that is only one explanation among several, and while the physics does not support it, the habit does keep a cook moving steadily rather than beating.