Bread Omelet
4 eggs 1/2 cup milk 1/2 cup stale bread crumbs 3/4 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper 1 tablespoon butter Soak bread crumbs fifteen minutes in milk, add beaten yolks and seasonings, fold in whites. Cook and serve as Plain Omelet.
A soft bread-and-egg omelet of the puffed, souffléd type. The recipe assumes you have already read the book's Plain Omelet, so the cooking method has to be supplied from context.
- How to cook itMelt the butter in an omelet pan over moderate heat, pour in the mixture, and let it set without stirring until the underside is golden and the top still moist. The book's plain omelet method then finishes the top in the oven before folding and turning out; the recipe gives no timings or oven temperature.
- Do not overbeat the whitesBeat them only to soft peaks that still slump. Stiff, dry whites will not fold into the wet crumb mixture without breaking, and the omelet collapses in the pan.
- Stale bread crumbsThis means soft crumbs torn or grated from day-old bread with the crust off, not the dry sandy crumbs sold in canisters. Dried commercial crumbs absorb far more milk and give a pasty texture.
- The soaking stepThe recipe allows fifteen minutes. Aim for crumbs fully swollen and breaking down under a fork before the yolks go in, or you may find pockets of dry bread.
- YieldFour eggs make one omelet, enough for two, perhaps stretching further alongside bread and salad. It does not reheat well and should go straight to the table.
- SeasoningThree-quarters of a teaspoon of salt for four eggs is generous by modern habit but reasonable here, since the bread and milk dilute everything.