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Shallot Omelet
Pour into a basin one tablespoonful of cream, several small lumps of butter, three eggs and some chopped parsley, seasoning to taste with pepper and salt; peel and chop three or four shallots, mix them with the above ingredients, and beat well. Put a lump of butter into a fryingpan and when melted pour in the omelet mixture. When set, roll the omelet round, brown it on one side, turn it onto a hot dish, pour over a little sauce or rich gravy, and serve.
A plain French-style rolled omelet with raw shallot beaten into the eggs. The one thing worth changing is the shallot: three or four raw shallots in a three-egg omelet will still be crunchy and sharp when the eggs are set.
- Soften the shallots firstSweat the chopped shallots in butter over low heat for three or four minutes until translucent, then let them cool before adding them to the eggs. Raw shallot cooks far more slowly than a thin omelet and otherwise stays harsh.
- QuantitiesThree eggs and one tablespoon cream are given; the parsley is unmeasured, and a couple of teaspoons chopped is a reasonable reading. "Several small lumps of butter" in the egg mixture can be taken as a teaspoon or so in total, cut small; the pan takes a further lump, about a tablespoon.
- Shallots, then and nowShallots vary a good deal in size, and the recipe's three or four may have been smaller than what is sold today. Two modern shallots, finely chopped to about three tablespoons, is enough for three eggs.
- Pan and heatAn 8-inch nonstick or well-seasoned pan over medium heat. The butter should foam but not colour before the eggs go in.
- "When set, roll the omelet round"Draw the setting edges toward the centre with a fork for the first 30 seconds, then leave it alone until the surface is just moist and roll it from the far side toward the handle. Total cooking time is under two minutes.
- "Brown it on one side"Take this as a light gold on the rolled seam only, achieved by pressing it briefly against the pan. Do not brown both faces; the interior will overcook and weep.
- The sauceA spoonful of demi-glace, reduced veal or chicken stock, or pan gravy, poured in a ribbon rather than over the whole omelet so the surface stays glossy.
- YieldOne omelet, one serving as a light main course or two as a first course. Make them one at a time rather than scaling the batter up.
Oscar Tschirky ran the Waldorf's dining rooms rather than its stoves, and the recipes he collected in The Cook Book by "Oscar" of the Waldorf (1896) reflect the French repertoire that governed American hotel cooking at the end of the century — hence the rolled omelet finished with a spoonful of sauce, in the manner of a Paris restaurant rather than the flat, folded American style. Omelet variations run to dozens of entries in the book, distinguished only by what is beaten in or poured over, which is how a large brigade kitchen generated a long menu from a short list of techniques. Shallots came to English and American kitchens as the mild aromatic of French cooking, prized because they carried onion flavour without onion's coarseness; the name descends through Old French eschalotte from the Latin for "onion of Ascalon," the port in ancient Palestine with which the plant was traditionally associated.