Plain Omelet
4. Eggs 1/2 Teaspoon Salt Few Grains Pepper 4 Tablespoons Hot Water 1 Tablespoon Butter or Butter Substitute 11/2 Can Thin White Sauce Beat Separate yolks from whites. yolks until thick and lemon-colored; add salt, pepper and hot water. Beat whites until stiff and dry, cutting and folding them into first mixture until they have taken up mixture. Heat omelet pan, and butter sides and bottom. Turn in mixture, spread evenly, place on stove it will cook slowly. Turn the pan occasionally so that it will cook evenly. and delicately When well puffed browned underneath, place pan on center grate of oven to finish cooking the top. The omelet is cooked if it is firm to the touch when pressed by the finger. .
If it clings to the finger like the beaten white of egg, it needs longer cooking.
Fold, turn on hot platter, and pour around 1/2 cups white sauce . Serve immediately. 1
This is a separated or "puffy" omelet rather than the folded French kind: the whites are whipped and folded in, so the finished dish is closer to a savory soufflé. The instructions assume a heavy iron omelet pan and a coal range.
- The hinge: low heat, then the ovenThe whole point is a slow set on the stovetop so the base browns without the puff collapsing. Keep the burner at low; the original gives no timing, but expect several minutes before the underside is set and colored.
- Oven finishThe original says only to place the pan on the center grate of the oven; no temperature or time is given. A moderate oven, in the region of 350F, for a few minutes will set the top. The pan must be ovenproof; a plastic-handled skillet will not do.
- Hot water, not milkThe four tablespoons of hot water are what make this omelet light. Water turns to steam and lifts the beaten whites; milk would weigh the mixture down and toughen it.
- The white sauce quantityThe ingredient line still reads "11/2 Can," which is garbled; a cup and a half of thin white sauce is the intended amount. It is poured around the omelet rather than over it. Thin white sauce of this period is roughly 1 tablespoon each butter and flour per cup of milk.
- Butter substituteIn a book of this vintage that usually means margarine or a vegetable shortening. Butter gives the better browning here.
- Folding techniqueCut and fold the whites in with a spatula only until no white streaks remain. Overworking deflates the foam and you lose the puff entirely.
- Testing for donenessThe finger test given is sound: firm and springy means done, tacky and clinging means undercooked. A puffy omelet continues to set for a minute off the heat, so err slightly under.
- YieldFour eggs serve two as a main dish or three as part of a larger breakfast. Serve at once; the puff falls within a few minutes.
The separated omelet was a fixture of American cooking-school teaching from the 1890s onward, drilled alongside the plain folded omelet as a lesson in handling beaten egg white. Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School book gives a nearly identical formula, hot water and all. The white sauce poured around the plate rather than over it may serve a practical end: sauce underneath keeps the surface dry and the puff standing. Books titled for brides were a publishing staple of the 1910s and 1920s, offering a short course in the dishes a young household was expected to produce without a cook, and eggs often took a chapter of their own as a cheap respectable protein on the table.