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Omelette, Charcutiere
Cut a medium, white onion in half, then finely slice it, place in a frying pan with a teaspoon melted butter and fry until a nice golden colour, then place it in a bowl, crack eight fresh eggs over, season with a half teaspoon salt and three saltspoons pepper, add a half gill milk and sharply beat up with a fork for two minutes. Cut three country sausages in halves lengthwise, heat a tablespoon melted butter in frying pan, add the sausages and briskly fry for two minutes on each side, remove, place on a plate and keep until required. Drop the eggs in the pan in which the sausages were fried, mix with fork for two minutes, let rest for half a minute; fold the opposite sides to meet in the centre, let rest for one minute, turn the omelettes on a hot dish, arrange the sausages around the omelette, dress six thin slices broiled bacon on top and serve.
A large folded omelette built around fried onion, with sausage and bacon as garnish. The proportions are generous and the timings, as printed, are optimistic for the sausage.
- Half a gill of milkTaking the gill as 4 fl oz, half a gill is 1/4 cup (by the British 5 fl oz gill it would be nearer 2.5 fl oz). Across eight eggs that is roughly half a tablespoon per egg, enough to set a little softer than an all-egg mixture.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is roughly 1/4 teaspoon, making three about 3/4 teaspoon of pepper. That is aggressive by current taste; start with a quarter of it and adjust.
- Country sausagesThese are fresh, coarse-ground pork links, not smoked or cured. Two minutes a side will colour them but not cook them through; take them to 160F internally on their own before setting them aside, then reheat briefly to serve.
- Cook the sausage first, then the eggsThe order matters: the eggs go into the sausage pan to pick up the rendered fat. Pour off any excess so you are left with a thin film, or the omelette will fry rather than set.
- The onionIt goes into the bowl with the raw eggs, so cook it fully golden and sweet in the pan beforehand. Undercooked onion stays sharp and crunchy inside the finished omelette.
- Pan sizeEight eggs want a wide pan, 12 inches or so, to fold cleanly. In a smaller skillet the mixture may be too deep and the centre still liquid when the base is brown; splitting it into two omelettes is an option.
- "Broiled bacon"Grilled or pan-crisped bacon rashers, laid on at the end. Cook them while the sausages rest so everything reaches the table hot.
- YieldEight eggs, three sausages and six bacon slices will serve three to four as a main course.
Charcutière is the French kitchen's shorthand for the pork butcher's shop: a charcutier dealt in sausages, hams, bacon and cured pork, and any dish carrying the name announces pork somewhere on the plate. The classic sauce charcutière is a piquant onion sauce finished with chopped gherkins, and the onion here is the link — the omelette keeps the onion and the pork but drops the sauce. What remains is a recipe filed under a French garnish name and built from eight eggs and a plate of sausage and bacon, with timed intervals and an insistence on a hot dish.