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Plain French Omelet
6 eggs Salt and pepper 2 tablespoons butter Beat the eggs just enough to mix the whites and yolks, and add salt and pepper. Heat butter in an omelet-pan, pour a little of it into the beaten eggs and allow the remainder to get hot. Turn the eggs into the pan and as the mixture cooks on the bottom and sides, prick it with a fork so that the egg on top will penetrate the cooked surface, and run under the sides. The work must be done quickly and carefully so that the eggs are not all stirred up like scrambled eggs. While the eggs are still soft, but slightly thickened, fold over, let stand a few minutes to brown, and turn on to a hot dish.
A six-egg French omelet in the older style, cooked in one pan and folded rather than rolled. The whole thing takes about three minutes once the butter is hot.
- The hinge: heat and speedThe pan should be hot enough that the butter foams and just stops sizzling before the eggs go in, and the eggs should be kept moving while they set. Low heat tends to give a rubbery, weeping omelet; the instruction to work "quickly and carefully" is the heart of the technique, though the recipe does let the folded omelet rest to colour.
- Omelet-panThe recipe does not give a size; a pan of roughly 10 inches with sloping sides, well seasoned or nonstick, suits six eggs. Straight sides make the fold and the turn-out harder.
- Butter in the eggsPouring a little of the melted butter into the beaten eggs is not decorative — it enriches the set curd and helps it stay tender. Keep it to a teaspoon or so and use the rest to coat the pan.
- "Prick it with a fork"Modern practice is the same motion with a flat spatula or the back of a fork: lift the set edges and tilt the pan so raw egg runs underneath. The warning against scrambling is the point — stop the moment the flow slows.
- Let stand a few minutes to brownA few minutes is generous by current taste and will dry the interior. Thirty seconds to a minute after folding is enough for colour; a French omelet is traditionally served pale and still creamy inside.
- DonenessThe fold should happen while the top is glossy and barely set, since carryover heat finishes it on the plate. If it looks done in the pan it will be overdone on the dish.
- YieldSix eggs makes one large omelet serving three, or two smaller omelets if you prefer to cook in batches — three eggs per pan is easier to control.
The "plain" or "natural" omelet served as the baseline in period cookbooks: filled versions were generally the same procedure with an addition made before folding. American books of this era commonly distinguished the French omelet — eggs beaten only enough to blend, cooked fast, folded — from the puffy or "foamy" omelet, in which the whites were beaten separately and the pan finished in the oven. The instruction here to beat "just enough to mix the whites and yolks" places this recipe in the first camp.