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Rum Omelette
This simple dish is much liked by gentlemen. Break five eggs in a basin, sweeten them with castor sugar, pour in a sherry glassful of rum. Beat them very hard till they froth. Put a bit of fresh butter in a shallow pan and pour in your eggs. Let it stay on the fire just three minutes and then slip it off on to a hot dish. Powder it with sugar, as you take it to the dining-room. At the dining-room door, set a light to a big spoonful of rum and pour it over the omelette just as you go in. It is almost impossible to light a glass of rum in a hurry, for your omelette, so use a kitchen spoon.
A flambéed sweet omelette that lives or dies on the last thirty seconds. Everything before the flaming is straightforward; the flaming needs a moment's planning.
- Castor sugarCaster (superfine) sugar, which dissolves into the eggs without grittiness. Ordinary granulated will do if you pulse it briefly in a spice grinder; about 2 tablespoons suits five eggs.
- A sherry glassfulA sherry glass of the period held somewhere between about 1 1/2 and 2 fluid ounces, so roughly 3 to 4 tablespoons of rum. That is a generous amount of liquid for five eggs and it will slacken the mixture noticeably.
- Beat till they frothThis is the hinge. The rum thins the eggs, so only hard beating gives the omelette enough body to hold together when it slides out of the pan. Beat until the mixture is visibly foamy and pale, not merely combined.
- Three minutesOver medium heat, uncovered, in a shallow pan wide enough to hold the mixture in a thin layer. The result is a soft, barely set sweet omelette rather than a browned one. If it looks wet on top at three minutes, give it a few seconds more rather than turning the heat up, which sets the base into leather.
- Very soft eggsCooked this briefly, the centre stays loose. Anyone serving the young, the elderly, or the pregnant should use pasteurized eggs, or cook until the surface is set through.
- Lighting the rumThe author is right that a narrow glass will not catch. Warm a couple of tablespoons of rum in a metal kitchen spoon or small ladle over a flame until it just steams, then touch a lit match to the vapour above it. Do not pour from the bottle toward a flame.
- Flaming safelyMove the bottle away from the dish first, keep the burning spoon at arm's length and clear of hair, sleeves and low-hanging fixtures, and pour steadily onto the omelette. The flame is pale blue and hard to see in daylight; carry it to a dim room and let it burn out on its own.
- YieldFive eggs make enough for two, or three at the end of a long meal. Serve at once, as it deflates within a minute or two.
The Belgian Cook Book was compiled in 1915 by Mrs. Brian Luck from recipes gathered from Belgian refugees who had fled to England after the German invasion. That origin explains the domestic, conversational voice here, including the odd stage direction about the dining-room door: these were dictated household dishes rather than professional formulas. The sweet omelette flamb"eed with spirits is often said to have been a closing dish of the French and Belgian bourgeois table, related to the omelette au rhum and the more elaborate omelette souffl"ee, and its appeal was as much theatrical as culinary. The remark that it is "much liked by gentlemen" is very much of its period: sweet dishes carrying a strong dose of spirits were conventionally reckoned masculine, in the same way as a savoury or a glass of port at the end of dinner.