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Spanish Omelet
Mince finely as much fat and lean ham as will fill a small tea-cup, and add two finely-minced button-onions. Beat six eggs, stir the ham, etc., into them, and fry the omelet in the usual way. A true Spanish omelet would be made with garlic, instead of onion, but this would be too strong for ordinary palates.
A plain ham-and-onion omelet of the Victorian kind, written for cooks who already knew the house method for omelets. Two things need translating: the teacup and the phrase "in the usual way".
- A small tea-cupVictorian teacups held roughly 5-6 fl oz, so the ham comes to about 4 oz (115 g) once minced. Anything between 3 and 5 oz will work against six eggs.
- Button-onionsThese are the small pickling onions sold in nets, not spring onions. Two of them yield about a tablespoon minced; a single small shallot is the closest everyday substitute.
- The hamUse cooked or dry-cured ham, not raw gammon. The recipe specifies both fat and lean, which suggests a cut piece with some fat on it; the fat renders and seasons the pan.
- Render the ham firstGive the minced ham and onion a minute or two in the omelet pan before the eggs go in. Raw button-onion in a two-minute omelet stays sharp and crunchy.
- "In the usual way"Butter in a hot pan, eggs in, draw the setting edges to the centre with a fork while tilting the liquid egg out to the rim, and fold while the top is still glossy. High heat and under two minutes; a slowly cooked omelet turns leathery.
- SaltNone is called for and none is needed until you have tasted the ham, which in a period cure may well be salty enough on its own.
- The garlic versionIf you want the omelet the author declined to give, one clove finely minced replaces the onions and goes into the butter for about thirty seconds before the eggs.
- YieldSix eggs makes one large omelet for three, or two smaller pan-sized omelets, which is easier to manage and gives a better texture.
"Spanish omelet" has meant several unrelated things. In Spain itself the tortilla espafola is the thick potato-and-onion cake eaten cold in wedges; in American diners of the twentieth century the name came to mean an omelet under a tomato and green pepper sauce. The recipe under discussion means neither. For a late-Victorian English kitchen the Spanish note was simply garlic, an ingredient treated as a foreign extremity to be named and then quietly withdrawn mdash the sentence "this would be too strong for ordinary palates" is as good a summary of the prevailing attitude as any single line. What remains is an economical way of using up the last of a cooked ham.