No. 2886

Cream Omelet—Plain

Omelette Nature a la Creme

Break seven or eight eggs in a vessel, season and beat lightly, mixing in a few small pieces of butter and two spoonfuls of raw cream. Melt some fresh butter in an omelet pan, pour in the eggs, stir quickly with a large spoon and thicken properly, keeping the omelet mellow; when it detaches from the bottom bring it forward to roll over; turn it rapidly on a long dish and form it prettily, shaping the ends under so as to have them pointed; brush the surface with melted butter and throw over some chopped parsley.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's plain omelet is a technique exercise more than a recipe: the whole thing lives or dies on heat control and knowing when to stop cooking. A few of his terms and quantities need translating.

"Keeping the omelet mellow" is the hingeMellow appears to render the French baveuse — the interior still loose and glossy when the omelet leaves the pan. It sets further from residual heat as it is rolled and plated, so pull it while it still looks slightly underdone in the middle.
SpoonfulsRanhofer's unqualified "spoonful" is generally read as a tablespoon, which would make two spoonfuls of cream about 30 ml for seven or eight eggs. Heavy cream is the right modern stand-in for "raw cream"; unpasteurised cream is not needed and is not worth seeking out.
Pan sizeSeven or eight eggs is a large omelet by present standards and needs a 10 to 12 inch pan. In a smaller pan the eggs sit too deep, the bottom overcooks before the centre sets, and rolling becomes impossible.
HeatMedium is right, not high. Ranhofer's instruction to stir quickly with a large spoon while it thickens is the classic method — keep the curds small and the eggs moving until they begin to set, then leave them alone for a few seconds to form the skin that lets the omelet detach.
Season before, not after"Season" here means salt and pepper beaten into the eggs. Salting at the table on a rolled omelet does nothing for the interior.
ShapingRolling it forward against the far lip of the pan and inverting it onto the platter gives the seam underneath. Tucking the ends under to a point is a service convention of the period; the brush of melted butter is there for shine and should go on at the last moment.
YieldThree to four as a main course, six as part of a larger meal. Cook it immediately before serving — a rolled omelet held even five minutes goes firm and weeps.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer spent more than thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the working repertoire of that kitchen set down in one enormous volume — well over a thousand pages, with the French title kept alongside the English for nearly every dish. The run of omelets it contains, of which this is the plainest, reflects how central egg cookery was to the à la carte restaurant: an omelet could be fired to order in two or three minutes and served at any hour. Calling it omelette nature — plain, unadorned — marks it as the baseline against which the garnished versions on the surrounding pages are measured, and the addition of cream and butter to the beaten eggs is the standard French kitchen insurance against a dry result rather than any particular house secret.