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Omelette with Parsley
Have a tablespoon well-washed, thoroughly drained and finely chopped parsley ready on a saucer. Carefully break eight fresh eggs in a bowl, pour in half gill cold milk. Season with half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons white pepper, add the parsley, beat up briskly with a fork for two minutes. Thoroughly heat two tablespoons melted butter in a frying pan, drop in the eggs, sharply stir with the fork for two minutes, let rest for half minute, fold up the opposite sides to meet in the centre, let rest for a minute. Then turn the omelette on a hot dish and serve.
A plain French omelette scaled for a family. The measurements are turn-of-the-century, but the method is exactly what a modern cook would do — the whole thing lives or dies on pan heat and on stopping while the centre is still soft.
- Half a gillA gill is half a cup, so half a gill of milk is about 1/4 cup, or 4 tablespoons — a modest amount for eight eggs. More liquid than that and the omelette weeps.
- Two saltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so this is about half a teaspoon of white pepper. That is assertive by current taste; a quarter teaspoon suits most palates.
- Pan size and heatEight eggs need a 10- to 12-inch pan, and the butter should be hot enough to foam but not brown. The recipe says only to 'thoroughly heat' the butter, which in practice points to a good working heat — a cool pan gives you scrambled eggs no amount of folding will rescue.
- The two minutes of stirringThis is the hinge. Stir briskly only until the eggs are a mass of soft curds with liquid still running, then stop and let the base set. Cooking past that point is what turns an omelette leathery.
- Dry the parsley"Well-washed, thoroughly drained" is not fussiness — wet parsley drops water into hot butter and steams the eggs. Spin it dry or press it in a towel before chopping.
- Resting and foldingThe half-minute rest firms the underside enough to fold; the minute after folding finishes the interior by residual heat. Slide, rather than flip, onto the plate.
- YieldEight eggs in one pan serves three to four. If you want individual omelettes, work in two- or three-egg batches in a smaller pan rather than dividing this one.
The International Cook Book is the work of Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York, and its omelette chapter reads like a professional's drill book: dozens of near-identical entries differing only in what is folded in. The plain herbed omelette — omelette aux fines herbes when parsley is joined by chervil, chives and tarragon — was the standard against which a French-trained cook was judged. The timings here are given precisely, down to the half minute, so that the sequence can be repeated exactly rather than judged by how the eggs look. The white pepper is a period marker too: dark specks in a pale dish were often considered a fault in fine cooking, which is generally the reasoning offered for reaching for white pepper in eggs, cream sauces and soups.