Rice Omelet
3 eggs 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons butter 1 cup cold boiled rice 1 cup milk Warm the milk in a double boiler, add the rice and 1 tablespoon of butter, stir and beat till well blended; add the well-beaten eggs and seasoning. Melt a tablespoon of butter in omelet pan, when hot turn into it the rice mixture and let it brown one minute; put in the oven to set, fold and serve as usual.
A soft, custard-loose omelet built on leftover rice — closer to a baked frittata than a French omelet, and it behaves like one. The hinge is temperature: the milk-and-rice base must be cooled to warm before the beaten eggs go in, or you will have sweet scrambled rice pudding.
- Temper the eggsWarm the milk gently in the double boiler — the recipe says warm, not scald — and let the rice mixture drop to lukewarm before beating in the eggs, so they blend in rather than setting on contact. The recipe gives no such instruction.
- "Put in the oven to set"The original names no temperature; a moderate oven, around 350°F, will serve. Judge by the centre, which should be just firm and no longer wet when the pan is tilted, rather than by the clock.
- Omelet panA 9- or 10-inch ovenproof skillet, well seasoned or nonstick. The mixture is wet and loose, and a thin pan without an ovenproof handle will not survive the second stage.
- Cold boiled riceA cup of cooked, cooled long- or medium-grain white rice, drained dry rather than sticky. Warm rice releases starch into the milk and thickens the base to paste. This is a leftovers recipe and works best with rice a day old.
- The one-minute brownOne minute over a hot burner sets and colors the underside only; do not stir it once it is in the pan. That skin is what holds the folded omelet together.
- FoldingA rice omelet is heavier than a plain one and tears easily. Loosen the edge all around with a spatula, fold in half in the pan, and slide it out rather than turning it out.
- SeasoningHalf a teaspoon of salt for three eggs, a cup of rice and a cup of milk is a middling seasoning; pepper, and a little grated cheese or chopped parsley, are welcome. Serve it savoury — nothing here is sweetened.
- YieldTwo generous servings, or three at a breakfast table with other dishes.
Recipes like this belong to a long tradition of turning yesterday's cooked grain into today's dish. It is the kind of dish written for households where rice was boiled plain in quantity and the remainder was expected to reappear as croquettes, puddings, griddle cakes or an omelet. The technique — cooked rice bound with beaten egg, browned on the stove and finished in the oven — is the same method behind the era's countless "bread omelets" and "cracker omelets," all of them ways to stretch three eggs to feed a family. Rice omelets under various names turn up across European and Japanese cookery too, though the rice-and-egg combination is common enough that no single origin can be claimed for this version.