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Foamy Omelet
Same ingredients as for first omelet, beating yolks and whites separately and combining ingredients in a way to produce a foamy appearance before pouring into omelet pan. 4 eggs 1 teaspoon salt ½ cup milk
A puffy or souffléed omelet, given in the shorthand of a book that assumes you have already read the plain omelet a few entries earlier. The whole method rests on how the two bowls are combined.
- The hinge: fold, do not stirBeat the yolks with the milk and salt until smooth, whip the whites to soft peaks that just hold their shape, then cut and fold the yolks through in three additions. Stirring collapses the foam and you are back to a plain omelet.
- The salt is too muchA teaspoon of salt for four eggs reads as harsh to modern palates and also slackens beaten whites. A half teaspoon, or a scant one, is closer to current practice; salt the yolks rather than the whites.
- Half a cup of milk is a lotThat much liquid loosens the yolk base and makes the foam harder to hold. Two to four tablespoons gives a tender omelet that still rises. If you keep the full half cup, expect a flatter, custardier result.
- Pan and heatAn 8- or 9-inch skillet with sloping sides, well buttered, over low to medium-low heat. A foamy omelet needs slow, gentle cooking; high heat browns the bottom before the middle sets.
- FinishingCook covered until the base is set and the top still moist, three to five minutes; if the centre is still loose it can be finished uncovered in a moderate oven, around 350F, though the recipe itself gives no oven step. The "omelet pan" it names is most likely a plain iron or steel skillet, but the book does not say which.
- Serve at onceThe lift lasts a couple of minutes out of the pan. Fold in half, slide onto a warm plate and bring it to the table immediately.
- YieldFour eggs serve two generously, or three as part of a larger meal.
Lowney's Cook Book was issued in 1907 by the Walter M. Lowney Company, a Boston chocolate manufacturer, and compiled by Maria Willett Howard; like many manufacturer cookbooks of the period it mixes promotional chocolate recipes with a full general household repertoire. The distinction it draws here, between a plain omelet with the eggs beaten together and a "foamy" one with the whites whipped separately, was a common American division of the period; the separately whipped version is broadly comparable to what French kitchens called an omelette soufflée. The terse cross-reference, sending the reader back to the previous entry for everything but the technique, was typical of a genre that expected its cook to work through a chapter rather than dip into single pages.