Home › Friar's Omelets › Friar's Omelets (Eggs and a pinch of salt)
Friar's Omelets (Eggs and a pinch of salt)
eggs and a pinch of salt, as much sugar as you like. Beat eight whites of eggs all to a froth, stir them all together. To be put into the oven a quarter of an hour before wanting it-the oven must be quick. Glaze it with white sugar, and send quickly to table. It may be made with ground rice. The rind of a lemon grated, or lemon juice, gives it a nice flavour.
What survives is the closing half of a baked sweet omelet: whipped whites, sugar, a short spell in a hot oven, and a sugar glaze. The instructions below deal with the parts that are workable as written.
- A quick oven"Quick" in a Victorian range means a hot oven, somewhere around 400-450F in modern terms. At that heat a frothed-egg mixture sets and rises fast, which is exactly the point of the short bake.
- A quarter of an hour, and no waitingFifteen minutes is not a rough guide but the whole method: the dish is timed to come out as the table is ready. A frothed omelet begins to sink soon after leaving the oven, which is why the original insists on sending it quickly.
- Eight whites is a large quantityEight whites froth up to a considerable bulk. Use a wide, buttered dish so the mixture is no more than two-thirds deep, or it will rise over the rim before the centre sets.
- Folding, not stirringRead "stir them all together" as folding. Cut the froth into the base mixture with a spatula in as few strokes as possible; beaten whites stirred hard deflate and the dish bakes flat.
- Glazing with white sugarThis means dusting the surface with fine sugar so it caramelises to a thin crust. Nineteenth-century cooks used a salamander, a heated iron held above the dish; a broiler element for under a minute does the same work, watched closely.
- Ground riceGround rice is rice milled to a coarse, gritty meal, coarser than the finer rice flour sold alongside it in British shops. It thickens without gluten and gives a slightly grainy body; the recipe offers it as an alternative to whatever thickener the lost opening called for.
- LemonGrated rind carries far more flavour than juice here, and juice added to a frothed mixture will slacken it. Rub the rind into the sugar before mixing to draw out the oils.
- ServingA mixture built on eight whites would stretch to perhaps six or eight as a light pudding, straight from the baking dish.