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Omelette with Cepes
Crack eight fresh eggs in a bowl, add a half gill milk, half teaspoon salt, two saltspoons pepper, and sharply beat up with a fork for two minutes. Neatly wipe and finely mince six cepes. Thoroughly heat a tablespoon oil in frying pan, add the cepes, sprinkle over three saltspoons salt and briskly fry for five minutes, frequently tossing meanwhile, then add a half teaspoon chopped parsley and toss well. Drop in eggs, sharply mix with fork for two minutes and let rest for half minute; fold up opposite sides to meet in centre, let rest for a minute, turn on a hot dish and serve.
A plain French rolled omelette given a mushroom filling, written in the telegraphic style of a professional kitchen. Eight eggs is a large pan omelette, not a single serving.
- CepesCepes are Boletus edulis, sold as porcini. Six fresh caps is a very variable quantity, since cap size ranges widely; if using dried porcini, a couple of ounces soaked in warm water and squeezed dry will stand in, though the texture is softer. Buy from a shop rather than substituting an unidentified wild boletus.
- Half gill milkA gill is half a cup, so a half gill is 1/4 cup (2 fl oz). That is a generous amount of liquid for eight eggs and will give a soft, slightly loose omelette.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. The recipe therefore calls for 1/2 tsp pepper in the eggs and 3/4 tsp salt on the mushrooms, on top of the 1/2 tsp in the eggs. Total salt near 1 1/4 tsp for eight eggs is on the heavy side by modern taste; cut it back and season the mushrooms after they have browned.
- Frying the cepesSalting mushrooms at the start draws out water and they will stew rather than fry. Get the pan hot, colour the cepes first, then salt. Five minutes of brisk tossing is right for finely minced mushrooms; whole slices need longer.
- Pan sizeEight eggs need a 10-12 inch pan to fold properly. In a smaller pan the omelette sets too thick to roll and you end up scrambling it.
- "Sharply mix with fork for two minutes"This is the hinge. The fork is used to keep dragging set curd from the base to the centre over moderate heat, so the omelette cooks evenly without browning. Two minutes is a maximum; pull it when the surface is still visibly moist, as it carries on setting in the fold.
- FoldingFolding opposite sides to meet in the centre gives the classic French tri-fold rather than a half-moon. Slide it out seam-side down onto the warmed dish.
- YieldServes four as a main course or six as part of a larger meal. Serve at once; a folded omelette does not hold.
Filippini was long a chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The International Cook Book (1906) is his; this entry belongs to a manner of cooking where mushrooms and herbs do most of the work. Cepes were a marker of French cooking in American restaurant kitchens of the period. The rolled omelette itself was already a fixed piece of French professional technique by the 1900s, and its appearance here with a single flavouring and a pinch of parsley shows the pattern such books relied on: one base method, endlessly varied by whatever filling the larder held.