To Make Omelets
To make an omelet, beat the yolks lightly (twelve beats is said to be the magic number), as too much beating makes them thin be the magic number), as too much beating makes them thin and destroys the appearance of the omelet, then add the milk, the salt, pepper, and flour if any is used, and lastly the whites beaten to a stiff froth. Have the skillet as hot as it can be without scorching the butter; put in a table-spoon of butter and pour in the omelet, which should at once begin to bubble and rise in flakes. Slip under it a thin, broad-bladed knife, and every now and then raise it up to prevent burning. As soon as the under side is hard enough to hold together, and the eggs begin to "set," fold over, shake the skillet so as to entirely free the omelet, carefully slide it on a hot platter, and serve at once. It should be cooked in from three to five minutes. To bake an omelet, place in the frying-pan on top of stove until it begins to "set" in the middle, then place in a rather hot oven; when slightly browned, fold if you like, or turn a hot dish on top of the pan, upset the latter with a quick motion, and so dish the omelet with the under side uppermost. It should be baked in from five to ten minutes. Where a large quantity of eggs are used, instead of making into one large omelet, divide and make several, sending each to the table as soon as done. Three eggs make a good-sized omelet. Ham, chicken, and all kinds of meat omelets, are made by chopping the meat fine and placing between the folds before dishing. In making vegetable (asparagus, tomatoes, cauliflower, etc.) omelets, cook the vegetables as if for the table; place them in the center of the omelet just before folding. For a plain, easily-made omelet, take three table-spoons milk and a pinch of salt for each egg; beat the eggs lightly for three or four minutes, pour them into a hot pan in which a piece of butter the size of a walnut has just been melted, cook three or four minutes, fold over and serve at once. Some scald a little parsley, pour off the water, chop it, and mix with the omelet just before pouring into the pan. Old cheese, grated and added to a plain omelet, is a favorite dish. To make a bread omelet, remove all crust from a large slice of light, white bread, moisten with sweet milk, rub through a sieve, add to the yolks, beat very thoroughly, and season with salt and pepper to taste, adding beaten whites last.
This is a method rather than a fixed formula, and it covers two styles at once: the separated, souffléd omelet and the plain beaten one. Read it as instructions for a foamy omelet first, with a simpler version tacked on at the end.
- The hinge: don't overbeatThe twelve-beat rule for the yolks is sound reasoning even if the number is arbitrary. Yolks whipped to a froth thin out and the whites you fold in afterwards collapse, which is exactly what makes the finished omelet flat rather than flaked.
- "As hot as it can be without scorching the butter"On a modern burner that is roughly medium-high, around the point where butter foams and just begins to smell nutty. Once the egg is in, dropping to medium helps the underside set before the middle turns to rubber. The original allows three to five minutes.
- "A rather hot oven"Period oven terms are imprecise; read it as a hot oven, somewhere around 400F. Five to ten minutes is plausible for a three-egg omelet in an ovenproof skillet, and it should still be slightly moist in the center when it comes out.
- Butter the size of a walnutRoughly one tablespoon, the same amount specified for the first method. In a well-seasoned or nonstick pan you can use less, but butter is doing flavor work here as well as lubrication.
- Three tablespoons milk per egg is a lotThat is nine tablespoons for three eggs, and the result will be loose and prone to weeping. One to two teaspoons per egg suits modern taste, or none at all if you want a firmer fold.
- Flour "if any is used"A teaspoon or two of flour whisked into the yolks and milk stabilizes the foam and keeps the omelet from deflating on the platter. It is optional, and it does mute the flavor slightly.
- Old cheeseLikely a sharply aged hard cheese, dry enough to grate finely; aged cheddar or Parmesan would suit. An ounce or two per three-egg omelet is plenty. The original does not say whether it is beaten into the eggs or added at the fold.
- Fillings must be hot and dryChopped meat and cooked vegetables should be warmed through and well drained before they go between the folds. Cold filling stops the omelet cooking; wet filling makes the fold slump.
- YieldThree eggs to one omelet, as stated, serves one generously or two lightly. The advice to make several small omelets rather than one large one is still the right approach for a crowd.
Nineteenth-century American cookbooks tend to treat the omelet as two separate dishes under one name: the puffed sort, with the whites whipped and folded in and the pan finished in the oven, and the plain beaten-egg sort that a cook could put together between other jobs. This entry gives both, compressing a whole small chapter's worth of variations into one dense paragraph and then listing the fillings as afterthoughts. The insistence on speed — "serve at once," several small omelets sent to the table one after another — reflects a period when eggs were a breakfast and supper food cooked to order on a wood or coal range, and when a dish that fell in transit from kitchen to dining room could not be rescued. The bread omelet at the end is often traced to an older tradition of stretching eggs with a panade of milk-soaked crumb, a thrift measure that also happens to hold the foam together.