Plain Omelet
Four eggs Four tablespoons of water One-half teaspoon of Larkin Table Salt One teaspoon of butter Beat the eggs without separating. Add the water and salt. Melt the butter in a hot frying-pan. Pour in the eggs, shake the pan gently, and as the eggs thicken lift with a spatula, allowing uncooked portions to run underneath. When creamy throughout, roll.
Slip onto a hot platter, garnish with parsley and serve immediately.
A French-style rolled omelet, written for a cook who already knew what an omelet pan felt like. The proportions are sound; only the fat and the pan need attention.
- Larkin Table SaltA house brand sold by the Larkin Company, whose premium catalogs these recipes advertised. Ordinary fine table salt, half a teaspoon, is exactly right for four eggs.
- ButterOne teaspoon for four eggs is thin even in a well-seasoned iron pan. Use a tablespoon in a modern nonstick or carbon-steel skillet, 8 to 9 inches across, and let it foam before the eggs go in.
- Water, not milkThe four tablespoons of water are deliberate. Water turns to steam and puffs the curd, where milk weighs it down and encourages browning. Keep the water.
- HeatRead "hot frying-pan" as a briskly heated pan, moderated once the eggs are in. Too hot and the underside sets and colors before the top is creamy; the whole method depends on the eggs staying loose long enough to lift and let the raw egg run beneath.
- "When creamy throughout, roll"The hinge of the recipe. Roll while the surface still looks slightly wet and glossy; residual heat finishes it on the platter. An omelet that looks done in the pan is dry on the plate.
- RollingTip the pan away from you, fold the near third over with the spatula, then let the omelet roll onto the hot platter seam side down. The recipe gives no time, but an omelet this size is generally a matter of a few minutes at most.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; four eggs would make one omelet serving two at breakfast, or one generously. Doubling in the same pan is unlikely to work well; cook two omelets in succession instead.
This is the plain rolled omelet of nineteenth-century French cookery, of the kind that entered American household books through the cooking-school teachers of the later nineteenth century: it demonstrates technique with four cheap ingredients and no sauce. The reference to Larkin Table Salt marks the book's origin as a promotional cookbook, the sort issued by mail-order firms who sold soap, spices and pantry staples on a club plan and gave recipe pamphlets away to keep the brand names in front of the cook.