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Cheese Omelette
Carefully crack eight fresh eggs into a bowl, add half a gill fresh milk, one and a half ounces grated Parmesan and one ounce Swiss cheese. Season with a level teaspoon salt and two saltspoons white pepper. Sharply beat up with a fork for two minutes. Heat a table-spoon butter in a black frying pan, drop the mixture in the pan, stir well with a fork until well thickened, let rest for half minute, then fold up the two sides; let rest half minute, turn it into a hot dish and serve.
A French-style rolled omelette scaled for a crowd. The measurements are period shorthand and the timing is deliberately brief — nothing here should brown.
- Half a gill of milkIn American books of this era a gill is reckoned at half a cup, so half a gill is about 4 tablespoons (2 fl oz). British usage put a gill at 5 fluid ounces, which would give 2½ fluid ounces, or about 5 tablespoons; either amount works, since the milk is only there to loosen the eggs.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons of white pepper is a half teaspoon. That is assertive for eight eggs; with a full teaspoon of salt already in, taste before committing to all of it.
- The cheesesAn ounce and a half of grated Parmesan is roughly ½ cup loosely packed; the ounce of Swiss is about ¼ cup grated. "Swiss" here means Gruyère or Emmental, not the sliced sandwich cheese. Grate the Gruyère on the coarse side and the Parmesan fine so it disperses.
- A black frying panA carbon-steel or well-seasoned cast-iron skillet, the sort of pan the phrase most likely denotes. Nonstick does the same job. Eight eggs need at least a 12-inch pan, and the single tablespoon of butter is mean for that surface — two is more realistic.
- The hinge: stop earlyPull the pan when the eggs are still visibly moist and glossy. The two half-minute rests are what set the base and let the cheese melt; carrying on stirring past "well thickened" gives you scrambled eggs bound with rubbery cheese.
- Folding"Fold up the two sides" means bringing both edges toward the centre to make a plump roll, then rolling it out onto the dish seam-side down. Warm the serving dish first, as instructed — a cold plate flattens the omelette in seconds.
- Scale and yieldEight eggs serves four generously. If your largest pan is 10 inches, split the mixture and make two four-egg omelettes in succession; one oversized omelette is far harder to keep tender.
This is the kind of cooking that sets down the plain French repertoire in the clipped voice of a professional kitchen. The dish is omelette au fromage, and the pairing of Parmesan with Gruy iption is the classic restaurant combination — the Parmesan for savour and salt, the Alpine cheese for the stretch and melt. What marks the recipe as professional rather than domestic is the insistence on a black pan, the two-minute beating, and the two timed rests; French kitchens of the period treated the omelette as a test of touch.