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Fish Omelet
Add to one cup of any kind of cold fish, flaked fine, cream enough to moisten it, one tablespoon of butter and pepper and salt to taste. Make the omelet in the usual way, spreading on the fish mixture just before folding.
A plain filled omelet from an era when cooked fish left over from dinner was an expected breakfast ingredient. The recipe assumes you already know how to make a French omelet, so the useful detail is all in the filling.
- "Cream enough to moisten"Roughly 2 to 3 tablespoons of heavy cream for a cup of flaked fish. The mixture should hold together and look glossy, not run when tipped.
- Warm the filling firstThe fish is cold and the omelet cooks in under two minutes, so a cold filling gives a lukewarm centre. Heat the fish, butter and cream together gently in a small pan until steaming, then keep it warm while you cook the eggs.
- Which fishCooked salmon, haddock, cod or halibut all work. Smoked fish is good but salt heavily, so taste before adding any.
- "In the usual way"The book gives no method here. Period cookbooks usually offered both a plain folded omelet and a puffy omelet of separated eggs; the instruction to spread the filling on before folding fits the plain kind. Beat 2 to 3 eggs with a pinch of salt, pour into a hot buttered pan, stir briefly, let set, and spread the filling on one half a few seconds before folding.
- BonesThe recipe does not say why it wants the fish flaked fine, but flaking it by running it through your fingers rather than a fork lets you catch pin bones.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield. A cup of flaked fish is a generous amount for a single 2- to 3-egg omelet and would likely stretch to two or three, so scale the filling to the number you are cooking.
- SeasoningCold fish is bland. Beyond the salt and pepper, a squeeze of lemon and chopped parsley or chives brings the filling back to life.
Fish for breakfast was ordinary in British and American households well into the twentieth century, and cold cooked fish turns up often in cookbooks of this period as an assumed ingredient rather than an apologised-for leftover. Kedgeree, fish cakes and creamed finnan haddie belong to the same habit of using fish on its second day. Butterick, better known for dress patterns, also published domestic manuals aimed at the middle-class housekeeper, and the terse instruction to "make the omelet in the usual way" is characteristic of the genre, which assumed a reader already competent at the basics and in need only of ideas.