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Clara's Bread Crumb Omelet
1 1/2 cups very fine bread crumbs 1 cup warm milk 3 eggs 1/3 teaspoon pepper 3/4 teaspoon salt Mix bread crumbs with milk and pepper and salt, add yolks of the eggs beaten well. Fold in the well beaten egg whites. Pour into hot greased pan and cook until lower part is firm, then place pan in broiling oven and brown the top. Spread with jelly, fold over and turn out onto hot platter. Garnish with pieces of bright jelly.
A soufflé-style omelet stretched with soaked crumbs — closer to a sweet baked pancake than a French omelet. The whole thing rests on how you treat the whites.
- Crumbs to use"Very fine bread crumbs" is ambiguous: it may mean soft crumbs grated from day-old white bread, or dried crumbs rolled fine. Soft crumbs give the lighter result here; dry commercial crumbs drink the milk and go pasty, so if that is all you have, use less -- about 1 cup -- and expect a denser omelet.
- Soak fullyLet the crumbs sit in the warm milk until no dry grains remain, five to ten minutes. Any unsoftened crumb stays gritty in the finished omelet.
- The hinge: fold, don't stirBeat the whites to soft, glossy peaks and fold them in with a few broad strokes. This is the only leavening in the dish — stir them in and you get a flat, heavy crumb pudding.
- "Broiling oven"In a period range this was the compartment under or beside the fire; today it is simply the broiler. Preheat it before you start the stovetop cooking, and use a skillet with an ovenproof handle, since the pan goes straight under the heat.
- TimingFigure 4 to 6 minutes over moderate heat to set the bottom, then 1 to 2 minutes under the broiler to color the top. Watch it: the egg-and-crumb surface browns fast and turns leathery if left.
- The odd measureThe 1/3 teaspoon pepper is an unusual quantity to specify; 1/4 teaspoon is fine. The 3/4 teaspoon salt is right for this quantity of eggs and crumbs.
- Filling and foldingWarm the jelly slightly and loosen it with a fork so it spreads without tearing the omelet. Currant, quince or damson holds its shape better than a very soft jam.
- YieldServes two generously or three as part of a larger breakfast.
Crumb omelets belong to a long line of thrift cookery in which stale bread does the work of extra eggs -- the same instinct that produced bread puddings, panades and German Semmelauflauf. Recipes of this type appear in American and English household books through the nineteenth century, and the sweet jelly filling with its "bright jelly" garnish suggests a decorative breakfast plate rather than any real economizing.