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German Omelette
3 eggs (yolks and whites beaten separately).
Mix thoroughly one-half teacup milk and one teaspoonful of flour. Then add it to the yolks (well beaten) together with a little salt. Pour this mixture into a moderately hot pan, greased with butter. When this is nearly done (which will be in about five minutes), add the whites, stiffly frothed and slightly salted, spreading them over the whole surface. Run a knife carefully around the edges, and turn into a heated dish when done. It is an improvement to mix one-third of the frothed whites with the yolks before pouring into the pan.--Mrs. M. C. C.
A small foamy omelette in the nineteenth-century style, where the whites go on top rather than being folded in. Three eggs makes one generous or two modest servings.
- TeacupA teacup in American books of this period is roughly 3/4 cup, not the 8-ounce measuring cup. Half a teacup of milk is about 6 tablespoons — enough to loosen the yolks without making them watery.
- The flour mattersOne teaspoon of flour whisked smooth into the milk before it meets the yolks is what keeps the base tender rather than leathery. Mix it with the cold milk first, as instructed, or you will get lumps that never disperse.
- "Moderately hot pan"Medium-low heat on a modern burner, in an 8-inch nonstick or well-seasoned pan. Too hot and the yolk base sets and browns before the whites have anything to bond to.
- Five minutes is realisticThe base should be set at the rim and still glossy in the center when the whites go on — this genuinely takes four to five minutes over gentle heat. Whites spread on a fully cooked base slide off in the dish.
- Frothed whitesThe recipe says "stiffly frothed," but in practice beat only to soft-to-medium peaks; dry whites will not spread. The final note in the recipe is worth following — folding a third of the whites into the yolk mixture lightens the base and helps the two layers hold together.
- Finishing without turning"Turn into a heated dish" means slide it out, not flip it. The white layer sets from the heat below and from carryover; if it still looks wet, cover the pan for a minute rather than raising the heat.
- DonenessThe eggs finish barely set, which is the point of the dish. If that is a concern for whoever is eating it, cook until the whites are fully opaque and firm throughout.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (usually dated 1878, Louisville: John P. Morton, with later printings), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by Virginia housekeepers who are frequently identified only by initials, is full of these initialed submissions — a cookbook assembled as a neighborhood correspondence. The "German" label attached to omelettes in nineteenth-century American and British books usually signals the separated-egg, souffléed style rather than any particular German dish, distinguishing it from the plain French omelette beaten whole and rolled. Puffed egg dishes of this kind were a mark of skill in a period before reliable oven thermostats: the cook had to judge a moderate pan by hand and eye, and the two-stage method here — set the yolks, then crown them with froth — is a stovetop workaround for what a modern cook would finish under a broiler or in the oven.