Orange Omelet
3 eggs 2 tablespoons powdered sugar Few grains salt 2 1/2 tablespoons orange juice 1 teaspoon lemon juice 2 oranges 1/2 tablespoon butter Follow directions for Plain Omelet. Remove skin from oranges and cut in slices, lengthwise. Fold in one-third of the slices of orange, well sprinkled with powdered sugar; put remaining slices around omelet, and sprinkle with sugar.
A sweet French-style omelet in which orange juice replaces the milk or water of a plain omelet. It comes together in under five minutes, so have the oranges sliced and sugared before the pan goes on the heat.
- The hinge: fold while the center is still softSugar makes the egg mixture stick and scorch readily, and the citrus acid encourages the egg to firm up. Cook over medium heat only until the underside is set and the top still glossy, then fold at once; a sweet omelet left to dry out turns leathery and weeps juice.
- Powdered sugarIn books of this period "powdered sugar" usually means a fine granulated sugar, closer to today's superfine or caster sugar than to the cornstarch-laced confectioners' sugar on the shelf now. Superfine dissolves cleanly into the eggs; confectioners' will work for dusting the finished dish.
- The plain omelet it refers back toThe parent recipe is a standard three-egg omelet, beaten eggs with seasoning and a little liquid cooked in a hot buttered pan and folded while still creamy; the exact wording is on that page, not this one. Here the 2 1/2 tablespoons orange juice and 1 teaspoon lemon juice stand in for that liquid.
- Pan and butterThe recipe gives no pan size; half a tablespoon of butter suits a small pan of roughly 8 inches, and a larger one spreads three eggs too thin. Nonstick or a well-seasoned steel omelet pan both work, and the pan should be hot enough that the butter foams without browning.
- Preparing the oranges"Remove skin" means peel down to the flesh, taking off the white pith and the outer membrane, then cut lengthwise slices from pole to pole. Blot the slices before sugaring or the released juice will thin out into a puddle on the plate.
- SweetnessTwo tablespoons of sugar in the eggs plus sugar on the fruit reads sweet to modern taste. Cutting the sugar in the egg mixture to one tablespoon leaves the oranges to carry the dessert.
- YieldThree eggs makes one omelet serving two at the end of a meal, or one at breakfast. Do not scale up in a single pan; make two omelets instead.