No. 2883

Cheese Omelet—Swiss or Parmesan—with Crusts and Fondue

Omelette au Fromage de Gruyere ou au Parmesan aux Croutes Garnies de Fondue

Beat up eight eggs in a bowl and season; mix in four spoonfuls of fresh Swiss cheese cut up in small dice, adding two spoonfuls of grated parmesan, and also one of grated Swiss, then a piece of good butter divided in small pats. Make the omelet over a good fire, fold and turn it on to an oval dish; surround both sides with small round hollowed crusts (No. 52) filled with fondue (No. 2954).

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For the Modern Kitchen

A French rolled omelet built on three cheeses, plated with hollowed croustades of cheese fondue as a garnish. The cross-references are to other numbered entries in Ranhofer's book, so the dish as printed is a component of a larger system.

SpoonfulsRanhofer's "spoonful" is normally a tablespoon unless he says teaspoon or coffee-spoon. Read this as about 4 tablespoons diced Gruyère, 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan and 1 tablespoon grated Gruyère; the amount is not critical, but more than roughly a cup of cheese total will weigh the eggs down.
Fresh Swiss cheese"Fresh" here most likely points to a young, mild Swiss cheese rather than a long-aged, crystalline one. A supermarket Emmental or a six-month Gruyere both work; the point is that it melts to strings rather than seizing into a hard lump.
SeasoningSeason the eggs lightly. Between the Parmesan and the fondue garnish there is already a great deal of salt, and the recipe says only "season" without specifying an amount.
Butter in patsThe butter divided into small pats goes into the beaten egg, not only into the pan. It melts as the omelet sets and is what keeps the interior loose under all that cheese. Butter the pan as well.
A good fireThat means high heat and fast work: a pan hot enough that the egg sets on contact, with the whole thing finished quickly. Cheese omelets are usually spoiled by low heat and long cooking, which drives the cheese to rubber and browns the egg.
The crusts (No. 52)These are croustades: small rounds of bread hollowed out and crisped, made up under a separate number in the book. Small brioche or firm white bread rounds do the same job; crisp them first so they do not go soft under the filling.
The fondue (No. 2954)In this period "fondue" need not mean the Swiss communal pot; in French professional usage it commonly denotes a thick melted-cheese preparation, stiff enough to spoon into a case and hold its shape. Fill the croustades at the last moment.
YieldEight eggs makes one large omelet serving three or four as a course. Two pans of four eggs each are easier to control than one of eight.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer spent three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is his attempt to set the whole restaurant repertoire down in numbered order, which is why this entry reads like a work order rather than a recipe: the crusts and the fondue are simply called by their catalogue numbers. The dish belongs to the classical French omelet tradition — eggs cooked hard and fast, rolled, never browned — dressed up for service with a garnish that turns a plain cheese omelet into a plated course. Gruyère and Parmesan appear constantly in the book; "fromage de Gruyère" in this period covers a range of Swiss mountain cheeses rather than one protected appellation. The word fondue here retains its older, broader sense of simply "melted" — a thick cheese preparation used as a filling — well before the communal pot with long forks became the shorthand meaning in English.