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Omelet, with Cheese
Prepare the eggs as for a plain omelet. Mix with them two ounces of finely-grated Parmesan cheese, a small pinch of salt, and two pinches of pepper. Fry the omelet in the usual way, and before folding it over strew upon it an ounce of Gruyere cheese finely-minced. Fold, and serve immediately. Time, four or five minutes to fry. Probable cost. 1s. Sufficient for three persons.
A cheese omelet in the French style, written for a cook who already knows Cassell's plain omelet and only needs the variation. The gaps are all in that cross-reference.
- How many eggsThe original leaves the count to the plain omelet entry it refers back to. For three persons, six eggs is a reasonable working figure, cooked as one large omelet or as two smaller ones; two ounces of Parmesan to that many eggs makes for a strongly cheesy omelet.
- Two ounces, two waysTwo ounces of grated Parmesan is about two-thirds of a cup loosely packed. The ounce of Gruyère goes in at the end and should be cut in small dice or thin slivers rather than grated, so it stays soft and stringy inside the fold instead of dissolving.
- SaltA small pinch is deliberate. Parmesan is already salty, and with two ounces of it in the eggs the omelet needs very little more.
- Four or five minutes is the pan, not the eggsFour or five minutes -- The book gives that as frying time. On a modern gas or induction burner a well-heated buttered pan will cook a six-egg omelet in about two minutes; go the full five and you risk a dry, browned pancake.
- "Fry in the usual way"Butter, moderately high heat, pull the setting egg from the edges toward the centre until the top is just short of set and still glossy. Add the Gruyère then, fold, and slide it out — residual heat finishes both the egg and the cheese.
- Probable costOne shilling for a supper dish for three, at Victorian prices. Both cheeses were imported and would have been a significant part of that figure.
- Serving"Serve immediately" is the hinge. A cheese omelet held even a few minutes on a warm plate keeps cooking and the Gruyère sets firm.
Cassell's places this among a run of omelet variations built on a single base recipe, which is how nineteenth-century English cookery dictionaries handled French technique: teach the plain omelet model once, then list the additions. The pairing of a hard grating cheese worked through the eggs with a melting cheese folded in at the last moment is the standard Franco-Swiss approach, and the choice of Parmesan and Gruy u00e8re reflects what a British household could actually buy u2014 both travelled well and kept, unlike fresh cheeses. The book's "probable cost, 1s." is characteristic of the period's household manuals, which offered price as a rough guide u2014 hedged, as the wording admits u2014 so that a mistress could check her cook's accounts.