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Kirsch Omelets
Make a sweet omelet with a dozen eggs; when it is done and glazed throw round a wineglassful of kirsch, and set the omelet on fire. Serve it while burning.
Three lines of instruction that assume a professional kitchen and a cook who already knows how to build a sweet omelet. The gaps are worth filling in.
- A wineglassfulIn American cookbooks of this period a wineglass is usually reckoned at about 2 fluid ounces, which is a quarter cup. That is the right order of magnitude for a twelve-egg omelet; much more and you get a pool of burning spirit rather than a brief flare.
- Sweet omeletNot a plain omelet with sugar thrown on. A sweet omelet of this period is generally eggs beaten with a spoonful or two of sugar and a pinch of salt, cooked soft in butter and rolled; some versions are filled with jam or a little sweetened cream, though no filling is specified here.
- GlazedGlazing means dusting the rolled omelet with powdered sugar and passing it under a salamander until the sugar caramelizes in streaks. A broiler set high, with the dish close to the element for under a minute, does the same job. Watch it; sugar goes from amber to black quickly.
- KirschKirschwasser, an unsweetened cherry brandy distilled from whole fruit including the stones, around 40 percent alcohol. Cherry liqueurs sold today are sweetened and lower in proof, and lower-proof spirits will not reliably light.
- Getting it to burnWarm the kirsch briefly in a small pan before pouring it round the omelet. Cold spirit poured onto a hot dish often refuses to catch, and repeated attempts just leave a raw alcohol taste.
- Lighting it safelyTake the pan off the heat and away from the range hood, and never pour from the bottle over an open flame. Light at the edge of the dish with a long match, keep a lid within reach, and let the flame die on its own rather than blowing at it.
- YieldA dozen eggs makes a service omelet for six to eight as a dessert course. If you are cooking for two or three, four eggs and a tablespoon or so of kirsch keeps roughly the same proportions and is far easier to roll in a domestic pan.
- TimingThe flame burns out in under a minute and the omelet keeps cooking the whole time. Undercook it deliberately, so it is still loose in the center when the kirsch goes on.
Oscar Tschirky's book collects the working repertoire of a New York hotel kitchen at the turn of the century, when the French dessert omelet was a familiar item on ambitious menus and the flaming presentation may well have been part of the sale. Kirsch, distilled in the Black Forest and in Alsace and Switzerland from small dark cherries crushed with their stones, gives the bitter-almond edge that makes it the traditional partner for cherries, pineapple and sweet egg dishes; it was also the spirit called for in the classic soaking of savarins and the flavoring of Swiss fondue. Dishes finished at the table with burning spirit are often said to have been a fashion in grand hotel dining rooms around the turn of the century, and the brevity of Oscar's instruction suggests something about who the book was for: a reader presumably assumed to know how to make and glaze a sweet omelet already, who needed only the finish.