Omelets
For omelets select large eggs, allowing one egg for each person, and one tablespoon liquid for each egg. Keep an omelet pan especially for omelets, and see that it is kept clean and smooth. A frying-pan may be used in place of omelet pan. 4 eggs 1/2 teaspoon salt Few grains pepper
This is Farmer's general formula for omelets rather than a full method — the proportions and the pan matter more than anything else here, and the cooking itself is a matter of a minute or two over good heat.
- The ratio is the recipeOne egg per person, one tablespoon of liquid per egg, so four eggs take four tablespoons. Farmer does not say what the liquid should be; milk is the usual choice for a rolled omelet, while water is often said to give a lighter result.
- "Large eggs" then and nowEgg sizes were not graded in 1896 the way they are now, and sizes varied; a period egg was probably in roughly the same range as a modern large egg (about 2 oz in shell). Four of them plus the 4 tablespoons of liquid suit an 8-inch pan.
- The omelet panFarmer wants a pan reserved for omelets and kept clean and smooth; she names no material and allows a frying-pan in its place. The modern stand-in is a seasoned carbon-steel or well-kept cast-iron skillet, or a nonstick pan of 8 to 10 inches; the point is a slick surface and sloping sides so the omelet will roll out.
- Heat and timingButter the hot pan, pour in the eggs, and count on 2 to 3 minutes total. An omelet held on the heat until it is dry through the middle will be tough and weeping; pull it while the surface is still glossy, since carryover heat finishes it on the plate.
- SaltHalf a teaspoon for four eggs is about the usual modern seasoning for a plain omelet with no filling. Cut it back if you are adding cheese, ham or anchovy.
- What is missingFuller methods for the plain and the puffy omelet are given elsewhere in the book; the ingredient list on its own will not walk you through folding and turning out. Treat this page as the proportions table it is.
- YieldBy Farmer's own one-egg-per-person rule, four eggs serve four; by modern portions they serve two as a course with bread and salad.
Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking-School Cook Book made its name by fixing proportions in level measurements at a time when many cookbooks still said "butter the size of an egg," and this short entry is that instinct applied to the most improvised dish in the repertoire: one egg per person, one tablespoon of liquid per egg, and the cook can scale it without thinking. The preference for a pan reserved for omelets belongs to the era of untinned wrought-iron and steel pans, which cooked well only once a baked-on seasoning had built up; scouring one with soap and sand meant starting over — though Farmer allows a frying-pan instead, and asks only that it be kept clean and smooth. American cookbooks of the 1890s generally split omelets into the plain French kind, rolled out of the pan, and the puffy or "souffle" omelet with the whites beaten separately and the whole thing finished in the oven, and Farmer treats both under this same heading. Either way the dish turns on controlling heat — the skill that decides whether the result is tender or leathery.