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Omelette, Bordelaise
Crack eight fresh eggs in a bowl, add half gill cream, season with a half teaspoon salt, two saltspoons pepper, and sharply beat up with a fork for two minutes. Heat a tablespoon melted butter in a frying pan, sharply mix with fork for two minutes and let rest for a half minute; fold opposite sides to meet in centre, let rest for one minute, turn on a hot dish. Pour over a Bordelaise sauce, made with the marrow left out, and serve.
A plain French rolled omelette finished with a red-wine sauce. The written method skips a step or two and assumes you already know how an omelette behaves, so the notes below fill the gaps.
- Half a gill of creamA gill is half a cup, so half a gill is 1/4 cup (2 fl oz). That is generous for eight eggs; 2 tablespoons gives a tender omelette without slackening the curd.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, making this half a teaspoon of pepper for eight eggs. Modern palates and modern finely ground pepper will find that harsh next to a wine sauce; a couple of good grinds is closer.
- The missing instructionNowhere does the text say to pour the eggs into the pan. Heat the butter until it foams, add the eggs, and only then begin the two minutes of sharp forking.
- More butter, bigger panOne tablespoon of butter will not carry eight eggs in a modern pan. Use two, in a 10- to 12-inch nonstick or well-seasoned skillet, or split the mixture and make two omelettes of four eggs each.
- Heat and timingThe two-minute stir over medium-high heat is meant to build small curds while the surface stays glossy and barely set. The half-minute rest lets the base firm enough to fold; carrying it further gives the dry, leathery result the method is designed to avoid.
- Folding, not rollingFolding opposite sides to meet in the centre produces a three-fold French omelette, seam-side down when turned out. It should be pale, with no browning.
- Bordelaise without marrowBordelaise is a reduction of red wine and shallot finished with brown sauce, classically garnished with poached beef marrow. Filippini directs the marrow left out here, which leaves a wine-and-shallot red sauce; have it hot and ready before the eggs go in the pan, since the omelette will not wait.
- YieldEight eggs serves three to four as a light main course, or four to six as part of a larger meal.
Anything labelled bordelaise in a book of this vintage points to the classical repertoire built around Bordeaux's red wine and the marrow-garnished sauce served with steak, and the name simply means "in the style of Bordeaux." The International Cook Book is generally attributed to Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York, and its structure shows it: page after page of terse professional formulas, dozens of omelettes among them, each distinguished only by its garnish or sauce. The brevity is not carelessness but shorthand for a kitchen where a cook already knew the base preparation and needed only the variation.