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Omelette, Navarraise
Crack eight fresh eggs in a bowl, add a half gill cream, half teaspoon salt, two saltspoons white pepper, a half teaspoon freshly chopped tarragon leaves, and sharply beat up with a fork for two minutes. Heat in a frying pan a tablespoon melted butter, add three finely sliced cepes and two ounces very fresh calf's liver cut into half-inch-square pieces. Season with two saltspoons salt, a saltspoon pepper, and gently brown for five minutes, tossing meanwhile. Add a half bean finely chopped garlic, lightly toss, then drop in eggs, stir with fork for two minutes and let rest for half minute; fold up the opposite sides to meet in the centre, let rest for a minute, turn on a hot dish and serve.
A large folded omelette built around a browned garnish of porcini and calf's liver. The hinge is the liver: two ounces cut small and browned five minutes is right at the edge, so cut generously sized half-inch cubes and pull the pan off the heat the moment they colour.
- Half a gill of creamA gill is half a cup, so half a gill is 1/4 cup (2 fl oz). That is a fairly wet omelette for eight eggs; 2 tablespoons gives a firmer fold if you prefer.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. Two saltspoons of white pepper in the eggs is a heavy hand by current taste, and the garnish is seasoned again on top of it. Halve both if you are unsure.
- CepesCepes are Boletus edulis, sold as porcini. Three fresh caps could be anywhere from about 2 to 6 oz depending on their size. Dried porcini work: about 1/2 oz, soaked in warm water 20 minutes, squeezed dry and sliced, or use fresh cremini for a different but honest result.
- A half bean of garlic"bean" here most likely renders the French gousse, a clove (the word literally means a pod). Half a clove, chopped, and it goes in at the very end so it perfumes rather than scorches.
- Calf's liverAsk the butcher for a slice of milk-fed calf's liver and trim the membrane and any tubes before dicing. Older beef liver is coarser and much stronger; two ounces of it will dominate eight eggs.
- Pan sizeEight eggs need a 10 to 12 inch pan to set in two minutes. In anything smaller the centre stays liquid while the base toughens, and the fold will break.
- The restsThe half-minute rest before folding and the minute after are what let the interior finish on residual heat. Keep the pan on the lowest flame or off it entirely during both, or the base overcooks.
- YieldFour generous portions as a lunch or supper dish, six if it is part of a longer meal. Serve at once; a folded omelette holding liver goes grey and firm within a few minutes.
The name points to Navarre, the old kingdom straddling the western Pyrenees, and in French cookery a la navarraise is often taken to suggest garlic and a Basque or Spanish border accent, though the label was never codified. This version is characteristic of the high-end restaurant kitchens Filippini worked in (his world was Delmonico's), where a regional name was attached loosely to a garnish rather than to any documented local dish: cepes and calf's liver are both Pyrenean staples, but a Navarrese cook would more likely have reached for peppers and chorizo. The omelette as a vehicle for small quantities of expensive trimmings, a few mushrooms, two ounces of liver, is the older logic underneath it, and it explains why nineteenth-century cookbooks carry many named omelettes distinguished only by what was folded inside.