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Chinese Onion Omelet
3 cups chopped, raw onion 1/2 tablespoon Karo, Blue Label 1/4 cup Mazola 1/8 teaspoon pepper Kingsford's Cornstarch 3 tablespoons Argo or 3/4 teaspoon salt 4 eggs Put the Mazola in a medium-sized frying pan, add the Karo and onion and cook until the onion is yellowed and tender, stirring often. Add the salt, pepper and cornstarch. Beat the eggs light, pour in the hot onion mixture and drop by generous tablespoonfuls into a good-sized frying pan containing enough heated Mazola to barely cover the bottom. Fry first on one side, then the other, like pancakes, and serve.
Frying in "Deep Mazola" Mazola should not be heated to smoking point. Always use the bread test, or a frying thermometer to try the temperature. The frying-kettle should be heavy-of good size-and half-filled with Mazola. A frying basket should be provided.
Croquettes-Heat Mazola until hot enough to brown a bit of bread in forty seconds-375 degrees F.
Doughnuts and All Dough Mixtures-Heat Mazola until hot enough to brown a bit of bread in sixty seconds-350 degrees F.
French Fried Vegetables-Heat Mazola until hot enough to brown a bit of bread in one and a half minutes-325 degrees F. Cutlets, Chops, Etc. - Heat Mazola until hot enough to brown a bit of bread in two minutes-285 degrees F.
After Frying-Cool the Mazola and strain through a fine sieve into a jar or can. It can be used over and over-to the last drop. "Clarifying" is never necessary.
This is a promotional recipe from a corn-products company, so every ingredient is a brand name and the ingredient list has been scrambled by the book's two-column layout. Read it as onion pancakes bound with egg rather than a folded omelet.
- Untangle the ingredient listThe columns interleave: it is 3 tablespoons of Argo or Kingsford's cornstarch, 1/2 tablespoon Karo, 1/4 cup Mazola, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper, 4 eggs and 3 cups chopped raw onion. Nothing is missing, only jumbled.
- The brand namesMazola is corn oil, still sold; any neutral oil works. Karo was sold in several labelled grades; which grade Blue Label denoted at this date is not certain, and only half a tablespoon is used, to help the onions brown and sweeten. Argo and Kingsford's are plain cornstarch.
- Three tablespoons of cornstarch is a lotThat much starch gives a batter thick enough to hold its shape in the pan. The recipe stirs it into the hot onions; whisking it into the beaten eggs instead will help avoid lumps.
- TemperingPouring hot onion mixture into beaten eggs will begin to set them. Add the onions in a stream while whisking, and cook the cakes immediately rather than letting the batter stand.
- Cooking the onionsThree cups of raw onion cooks down considerably. Allow 15 to 20 minutes over medium heat, stirring, to get them genuinely tender and golden; underdone onion gives the finished cakes a raw bite.
- Pan and heatMedium heat and a thin film of oil, as for pancakes. Roughly 2 to 3 minutes a side. Generous tablespoonfuls give cakes about 3 inches across.
- The deep-frying notesEverything after "serve" belongs to the book, not to this dish; nothing here is deep fried. The temperatures quoted are sound enough as a period reference, though the bread-browning test is far less reliable than a thermometer.
- Reusing the oil"Used over and over to the last drop" is advertising copy. Strained frying oil can be reused a few times, but it darkens, thins and picks up off flavours; discard it once it smells stale or smokes early.
- YieldThe recipe states no yield; the quantities suggest a couple of dozen small cakes.
This comes from one of the recipe booklets issued by the Corn Products Refining Company, the maker of Mazola oil, Karo syrup and Argo and Kingsford's cornstarch, which is why all four appear in a single short recipe alongside a page of deep-frying instruction for the oil. The dish resembles egg foo young, the egg-and-vegetable pancakes of Chinese-American restaurant cooking, which spread in the United States in the early twentieth century and were adapted into home cookbooks under names such as "Chinese omelet"; how directly this particular recipe derives from it is not documented, and the corn syrup and corn oil are the sponsor's contribution.