Ham Omelet
Make the same as plain omelet, adding one half cup of minced ham after the omelet is in the pan. When folded over and served the ham will be completely concealed.
SAVORY OMELET No. 1 6 eggs 2 teaspoons chopped parsley 2 teaspoons chopped onion Salt and red pepper 2 tablespoons grated cheese Beat the yolks of the eggs thoroughly with the seasonings; beat the whites to a stiff froth and fold them into the yolks. Pour into a buttered pudding dish; sprinkle with grated cheese; bake for about fifteen minutes and serve at once. 6 eggs SAVORY OMELET No. 2 1/2 teaspoon salt T 1/2 saltspoon pepper 2 tablespoons gravy 1 tablespoon butter 1 tablespoon chopped parsley 1 tablespoon chopped onion 1 tablespoon lemon juice Break the eggs into a bowl; add the salt and pepper and gravy and beat well. Put the butter in the pan and when hot pour in the egg mixture. Add the parsley and onion; cook until a light brown; fold over and serve, pouring on the lemon juice after the omelet is on the platter. Garnish with parsley or slices of lemon.
Three related recipes sit on this page: a ham variation on the book's plain omelet, a baked soufflé-style omelet, and a folded pan omelet finished with lemon. A few of the measures and vessels need translating.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter of a teaspoon. "1/2 saltspoon pepper" is therefore about an eighth of a teaspoon — a couple of grinds.
- Red pepperIn books of this period "red pepper" means cayenne, not paprika and not chile flakes. Use it sparingly; a pinch is enough for six eggs.
- The 2 tablespoons gravySavory Omelet No. 2 calls simply for gravy, which in a book of this kind would mean thickened meat juices left from a roast. Reduced stock stands in for it, but keep it to two tablespoons or the eggs will not set cleanly.
- Pudding dish and oven heatA pudding dish here is simply a buttered baking dish rather than a shaped mold. The recipe gives no temperature; a moderate oven, around 350F, is a reasonable modern equivalent, and it is done when the centre is just set and no longer liquid.
- Warm the ham firstHalf a cup of minced ham dropped cold into setting eggs chills the pan and slows the fold. Heat it through in the butter before the eggs go in, or fold it in warm.
- Do not brown the folded omeletsSavory Omelet No. 2 says cook until a light brown. Modern practice keeps the heat lower and pulls the omelet while the surface is still soft; browning tightens the protein.
- Lemon juice goes on lastThe instruction is to add lemon only after the omelet is on the platter, so the juice does not go near the eggs while they are cooking.
- YieldSix eggs serves three at breakfast, or four alongside toast and something else. The ham omelet depends on the book's plain omelet base, whose size is not given here.
Omelets occupy a long run of pages in American household manuals of the early twentieth century because eggs were the cheap, always-available protein and a cook was expected to produce a dozen variations from one method. The structure here is typical: a plain omelet is taught once, and everything after it is a one-line instruction to add something to that base — ham, cheese, parsley, yesterday's gravy. Savory Omelet No. 1, with its whites beaten stiff and folded in before baking, is the domestic-manual version of what French kitchens called an omelette soufflée, here described by technique rather than by name. The reliance on two tablespoons of leftover gravy in No. 2 is a good marker of the era's economy, when the fat and juices from a roast were treated as an ingredient with a use for several days rather than something poured away.