Plain Omelet
3 eggs; 1 tablespoonful cream; 1 tablespoonful melted butter; 1/4 teaspoonful salt; a dash of white pepper or paprika.
Beat the yolks of the eggs very light; add the salt, pepper, and cream. Fold in the whites of the eggs, beaten very stiff. Have the butter boiling hot in the omelet-pan, which should be kept very smooth; turn the mixture in, and as soon as it begins to stiffen, draw it away from the edges of the pan or gently slide a knife under the centre to allow the uncooked egg to reach the hot pan, and cook evenly. As soon as the omelet is a rich golden brown, fold over and serve at once on a very hot plate. The mixture must not stand after the whites of the eggs are folded in. The secret of a light, fluffy omelet is in making and cooking quickly. This quantity is for two people. Double the above quantity may be made in one omelet, but if a larger amount is necessary, it is better to make two or three omelets rather than attempt cooking the whole quantity in one. Six eggs should be the limit.
This is a separated-egg (souffléd) omelet rather than the French rolled kind, and nearly everything about its success rests on speed.
- The hingeFold the stiff whites in only when the pan is already hot and buttered. Beaten whites soon begin to loosen and weep, and the recipe is explicit that the mixture must not stand once they are in.
- Pan and heatAn 8- to 9-inch nonstick or well-seasoned skillet suits three eggs. Medium heat, not high: "butter boiling hot" means foaming and just beginning to smell nutty, not smoking.
- Cream and butterA tablespoon of cream: heavy or whipping cream suits it, and half-and-half also works. The melted butter goes into the pan, not the eggs, in this version — the recipe lists it as an ingredient but directs it into the omelet-pan.
- Beating the whitesStiff but not dry. Whites taken past the point where they hold a firm peak will break into curds when folded and the omelet loses its lift.
- FinishingTotal cooking time is roughly 3 to 4 minutes. If the top is still loose when the bottom is golden, slide the pan under a broiler for 30 seconds rather than cooking it longer over the flame.
- DonenessModern guidance is to cook eggs until whites and yolks are set. A puffed omelet is commonly folded while the very centre is still slightly moist; those avoiding undercooked egg should cook it through.
- YieldThree eggs serve two as written. The advice to cap a single omelet at six eggs still holds — beyond that the centre sets long after the base has browned.
Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American cookbooks commonly distinguished a "plain" or "puffy" omelet, made with the whites beaten separately, from the French omelet stirred whole in a pan, though the labels were not used consistently from book to book. The insistence on a pan "kept very smooth" points to a kitchen of iron and tin, where pitting or scratching in the surface would tear the omelet; some period writers advise keeping an omelet pan for eggs alone. The warning about six eggs as a limit reads as practical rather than traditional: the wider the omelet, the longer the interior takes to set relative to the base.