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Omelette, Varsovie
Crack eight fresh eggs into a bowl, add a half gill cream, half teaspoon salt, two saltspoons white pepper and sharply beat with a fork for two minutes. Heat in a frying pan one and a half tablespoons melted butter, add two tablespoons fresh bread crumbs and toss well until it attains a nice light brown. Drop in the eggs briskly mix with a fork for two minutes, let rest for one minute; fold up the opposite sides to meet in the centre, let rest for half a minute, turn on a hot dish and serve.
A plain French-style rolled omelette given a Polish accent by a handful of crumbs browned in butter. Everything hinges on having the crumbs the right colour before the eggs go in.
- Half a gill of creamA gill is half a cup, so half a gill is 1/4 cup — generous for eight eggs but workable. Heavy cream gives the softest set; if you want a firmer omelette use 2 tablespoons.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons of white pepper is 1/2 teaspoon. That is a lot of pepper by current taste; start with half and judge.
- Brown the crumbs first, and watch themFresh (not dried) crumbs in butter go from pale to burnt in well under a minute at omelette heat. Get them to an even light brown, then add the eggs immediately — the residual heat of the pan is what sets the first layer.
- Pan sizeEight eggs plus cream is too much for a 10-inch pan if you want to fold it. Use a 12-inch nonstick or well-seasoned steel pan, or split the mixture and make two omelettes.
- The two minutes of stirringThis is a stirred, not a set, omelette: keep the fork moving through the eggs so curds form throughout. The one-minute rest afterward is what knits the base together so it will lift as a sheet.
- DonenessFold while the interior is still visibly moist. It will carry on cooking on the hot dish, and an omelette taken to fully dry in the pan will be tough by the time it reaches the table.
- ButterOne and a half tablespoons is the minimum for a pan this size. Add another half tablespoon at the edge just before folding if the surface looks dry.
- YieldServes three to four as a main course, four to six as part of a larger breakfast or supper.
Naming an omelette for a city was standard practice in the professional French kitchens that produced books like this one: the base preparation stayed fixed and a one- or two-item garnish carried the geographical label. Varsovie is simply the French name for Warsaw, and the buttered browned crumbs are one component of the garnish French cooks called a la polonaise, generally traced to Polish cookery's habit of finishing vegetables, fish and dumplings with bulka tarta, toasted crumbs in melted butter.