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Mushroom Omelet
Either fresh or canned mushrooms may be used for this. Heat one tablespoonful of chopped mushrooms in enough white sauce to moisten them, or clean three fresh mushrooms, and fry them in just enough butter to prevent burning; season with salt and pepper. While the mushrooms are being heated beat three eggs for half a minute, together with one teaspoonful of salt and a little pepper. Put the fryingpan over the fire, with one teaspoonful of butter; when the butter begins to melt pour in the eggs, and as soon as they are set on the bottom of the pan, break the omelet a little with a fork. When it is cooked to the desired degree, put the mushrooms on one half, and fold the other half over by lifting with a broad knife, then loosening the omelet from the pan without breaking onto a dish, and serve at once.
A plain three-egg French omelet with a creamed or sautéed mushroom filling. The method is sound as written; the seasoning and the pan are what need attention.
- Cut the saltA full teaspoon of salt for three eggs is several times what a modern recipe would call for. A generous pinch, about 1/8 teaspoon, is enough — especially if the mushrooms are already seasoned or bound in white sauce.
- Quantities are for oneThree eggs, one tablespoon of chopped mushrooms or three whole ones: this is a single portion, plated and served immediately. Doubling it in the same pan produces a scrambled mass rather than an omelet; make them one at a time.
- "White sauce"A standard white sauce: butter and flour cooked together, thinned with milk or cream. You need only a spoonful or two here, just enough to coat the mushrooms so they hold together in the fold.
- Canned mushroomsBy the 1890s canned mushrooms were an accepted pantry item, and the recipe treats them as fully interchangeable with fresh. Drain them well and pat dry, or the liquid will thin the sauce and weep through the eggs.
- Pan and heatA well-seasoned or nonstick 8-inch pan over medium heat. "When the butter begins to melt" is early — wait until it foams and the foam just subsides; too cool a pan and the eggs stick, too hot and they brown before the interior sets.
- "Break the omelet a little with a fork"This is the hinge. Stirring the setting curds once or twice, then letting them re-set, gives the soft interior against a thin skin. Beating the eggs only half a minute matters for the same reason: an over-beaten omelet cooks dense.
- DonenessThe recipe leaves this to the cook: "cooked to the desired degree." For a still-creamy centre the top should look barely wet when you add the filling; it will finish setting as you fold and plate.
- The turn-outLoosen the edge, tilt the pan over the warmed plate and let the omelet roll out seam-side down. A broad knife or offset spatula helps; the fold should not be pressed flat.
Oscar Tschirky's Cook Book (1896) devotes pages to omelets because the omelet was the workhorse of the hotel's à la carte and supper service — quick to order, quick to fire, and infinitely variable by filling. The construction here is the French one, folded rather than the puffed, oven-finished "omelette soufflée" also common in period American books. The casual note that "either fresh or canned mushrooms may be used" is a period detail worth pausing on: cultivated mushrooms were still a specialty crop in the 1890s, grown in cellars and caves and sold seasonally, so the canned product was not necessarily a compromise.