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Spanish Omelette
Beat the whites and yolks of 6 eggs separately, and add salt, pepper, 1/2 tablespoonful of flour mixed with as much milk; pour into a buttered pan and cook till firm. Before folding, it on a plate pour between the following sauce. 1 bayleaf, 1 onion, some parsley, 1 green pepper, free from seeds, 4 fresh mushrooms, a tablespoonful of ham, all chopped fine, and 1 lamb's kidney, sliced. Fry these in butter or olive oil, add 3 tomatoes, skinned, and 1 cup of consomme. Cook these 1/2 an hour before pouring in the omelette.
Two separate operations: a filled, soufflé-style omelette and a long-simmered garnish. The sauce takes half an hour, so start it first and treat the eggs as the last five minutes of the job.
- Order of workThe final line — cook these half an hour before pouring in the omelette — governs everything. Have the sauce simmered down and hot before a single egg is beaten, because the omelette cannot wait.
- "Pour between"The wording is garbled but the sense is clear: slide the set omelette onto a plate, spoon the sauce down the centre, and fold it over. It is a filling rather than a coating.
- Separated eggsBeating whites and yolks apart gives a puffed, tender omelette closer to a soufflé than a French rolled one. Fold the whites in at the last moment and do not stir once it is in the pan; cook over moderate heat, covered, until just firm on top.
- Flour and milkHalf a tablespoon of flour slaked with the same volume of milk — about a teaspoon and a half of liquid. It is there to stabilise the foam, so mix it smooth into the yolks before the whites go in.
- Lamb's kidneyHalve it, cut out the white core and fat, and slice thin. A brief soak in cold salted water tempers the smell. Kidney toughens fast, so give it a minute or two in the fat and let it finish in the sauce.
- ConsommeRead this as a cup of good beef or veal stock. Canned consomme tends to be saltier than the homemade article, so hold back the salt until the sauce has reduced.
- Green pepperAn ordinary bell pepper, seeded and chopped. Half an hour of simmering will take it well past crisp.
- Pan and yieldSix eggs suit a 10-inch pan and serve two generously, three at a stretch. Butter it properly; a foamed omelette sticks more readily than a stirred one.
Adelaide Keen's With a Saucepan Over the Sea (1902) gathered dishes from foreign kitchens for American cooks, and this one shows how loosely the label "Spanish" travelled. A true tortilla española is eggs and potato, cooked flat and firm and served in wedges; what appears here is a folded omelette with a filling built on tomato, onion and green pepper — a combination that period professional cookery often labelled à l'espagnole, a name applied loosely to sauces and garnishes alike. Kidney and ham were both familiar omelette fillings in the French repertoire of the period.