Rice Omelet
Warm 1 cupful of boiled rice with 1 tablespoonful of butter in 1 cupful of milk. Add 3 well-beaten eggs and a pinch of salt, pour into hot buttered frying-pan and let brown; when set, fold and serve.
Eggs, Creole Style To prepare eggs in Creole style put 1 tablespoonful of olive oil in a frying-pan with 1 teaspoonful of finely chopped onion and place over the fire. When the onion begins to color add 1 tablespoonful of finely chopped green pepper and 3 tablespoonfuls of the firm pulp of tomato.
Simmer all together until quite thick, add 2 tablespoonfuls of boiled rice, a dash of paprika and ¼ of a teaspoonful of salt. Cover the bottom of a shallow baking dish with this mixture and carefully break 6 eggs over it. Pour over them a tablespoonful of melted butter, dust with salt and pepper and bake in a moderate oven until the whites are set. 1
A thrifty way to stretch three eggs across a family: leftover rice warmed in milk, bound with egg and browned like a flat omelet. It behaves more like a soft pancake than a French omelet.
- QuantitiesRead the stray capital letters in the text as the numeral 1: one cupful of rice, one tablespoonful of butter, one cupful of milk. The cupful is presumably the standard 8 fl oz.
- The hinge: drive off the milkThe recipe says only to warm the rice in the milk, but it pays to cook it down until thick and almost dry, stirring, before the eggs go in. If the rice is still swimming, the omelet will be very slow to set and may end up scrambled.
- Cool before adding eggsLet the rice mixture come off the boil for a minute or two so the beaten eggs bind rather than curdle on contact.
- Pan and heatUse an 8- to 10-inch nonstick or well-seasoned pan over medium heat. High heat browns the underside before the centre sets; the mass is heavy and needs three to five minutes with a lid on to firm through.
- FoldingA rice-loaded omelet is far less flexible than a plain one. Fold it in half only, easing it with a wide spatula, or serve it flat in wedges.
- YieldServes two generously, or three as part of a larger breakfast. Salt is understated as written; season the rice as well as the eggs.
- The Creole eggs that followThat second recipe wants a moderate oven, roughly 350-375F, and something like 12 to 15 minutes for six eggs, until the whites are opaque and the yolks still soft. Its salt measure should read a quarter teaspoon.
Rice omelets belong to the long tradition of leftover cookery found in economy cookbooks: folding cold boiled rice into eggs turned a cupful of it and three eggs into a meal for a household. Comparable dishes include the Spanish tortilla with potato and the Japanese omurice, though there is no direct link between them. Its placement among egg recipes rather than rice ones suggests the rice was there to make the eggs go further.