Home › Left-Over Cereals › Rice Omelet
Rice Omelet
I small cup cold rice 3 eggs 2 tablespoonfuls milk 4 tablespoonfuls cur- 1 tablespoonful butter rant jelly 1 scant teaspoonful salt Beat the eggs well without separating, add rice, milk, and salt, stirring them in lightly. Melt the butter in a smooth frying-pan, and when hot pour in the omelet. As it cooks, lift carefully from one side to let the uncooked part run under. When all is creamy, spread with the jelly and fold. Serve on a hot platter. This makes a good luncheon dish.
A three-egg omelet stretched with leftover rice and finished with currant jelly. The ingredient list in the original was printed in two columns and has run together in transcription; read it as 1 small cup cold rice, 3 eggs, 2 tablespoons milk, 4 tablespoons currant jelly, 1 tablespoon butter, 1 scant teaspoon salt.
- The hinge: pull it while it is still creamyThe rice takes up some of the egg's moisture, and the mixture can set faster and drier than a plain omelet. Take it off the heat when the surface is still glossy and just short of set; carryover heat and the folding will finish it.
- SaltA scant teaspoon for three eggs is heavy by current taste, especially against sweet jelly. Half a teaspoon is closer to modern seasoning.
- Rice conditionCold rice out of the refrigerator clumps. Break the grains apart with a fork or your fingers before folding them in, or the omelet cooks unevenly around the lumps.
- Pan and heatA "smooth frying-pan" most likely meant a pan with an unpitted, well-seasoned surface; an 8-9 inch nonstick or seasoned skillet does the same work. Medium heat only -- the rice starches can scorch before the egg sets over a high flame.
- The jellyFour tablespoons is generous for a three-egg omelet and will run out when folded. Warm the jelly slightly and whisk it smooth first so it spreads in a thin layer rather than sitting in a lump.
- YieldServes two as a light lunch, one if it is the whole meal. Do not scale it up in the same pan; make a second omelet instead.
Sweet omelets were standard luncheon and supper fare in American and English cookery through the nineteenth century, and a folded omelet spread with jam or jelly appears in general household manuals of the period, currant jelly among the common choices. What is striking in this version is the cup of cold rice: cereals were cooked in quantity for breakfast, and the household literature of the period treated the reuse of yesterday's rice, oatmeal and hominy as a matter of thrift and duty rather than invention. The rice does real work here, giving three eggs the body to feed two people, which is the whole logic of the genre.