How to make an Omelette?

A perfectly cooked omelette shows a good cook. If you can’t master the simple dishes, here is the moment to crack them. My first practical exam at culinary college was omelet making, and I was panicking. All the eggs needed to be rolled on top of a frying pan, and each required three minutes to crack, beat, and season. Throughout the whole thing, the Chef was on our stove, assessing and judging us louder.

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To make an omelette, you need Heat, fat, eggs, and a frying pan.

Heat is easy. If you are starting from room temperature, most modern kitchens have something that can produce more than enough: an oven, a stove, or even a match will do. The only tricky part here is not to get so much Heat that the pan burns before the eggs cook.

As for the fat, this can be oil or butter or lard or whatever you have around. The amount depends on how much egg you are cooking, but if you use one of those square Teflon pans with the sloping sides, a couple of spoonfuls will do.

Now here’s the tricky part. Crack open some eggs and put the contents in a bowl. No matter how good you are at cracking eggs directly into the pan, sooner or later, you will succeed in getting shell into the egg. If it is in a bowl, you can pick it out again easily; if it is in the pan, you may never find it.

Once you’ve done this pours the eggs into the pan and keep them moving around until they set. For extra credit, add some salt and chopped parsley when they are almost done and serve them on toast with coffee and enjoy!

French vs American Omelettes.

The French omelette is a very different proposition. The first and most crucial difference is the pan. Where you use a large Teflon pan, the French omelet needs to be cooked in a heavy iron pan with sloping sides. The second is the type of egg used: whereas American cooks like to use eggs with as high an egg white-to-yolk ratio as possible, the French use eggs with much more yellow yolk, which gives their omelettes a richer color.

The third difference is that the French omelet takes much longer to cook than the American; it is cooked over very low Heat for about 20 minutes. This length of time has two effects: it allows the eggs to set slowly, so that the finished dish has a soft and creamy texture; and it also allows the surface of the eggs to caramelize (this has nothing to do with adding sugar), giving it a slightly browned appearance and taste.

The fourth difference lies in the shape of the omelet. Whereas American omelettes are rolled up into cylinders, folded over into half-moons, or even molded into little quiches by adding fillings before cooking, French omelettes are usually left flat.

The first time I heard the phrase “American omelet,” it was in a movie by Claude Chabrol. It seemed a strange thing to say: an omelette is an omelet, isn’t it? The only way I could interpret the phrase was as a kind of joke. The French are so snobbish about cooking that they have even invented a special name for the barbarous way the Americans make omelettes.

Basic Omelette.

A basic omelet is a useful thing to know how to prepare. I like to keep it simple: just eggs and cheese, maybe some salt and pepper. For two eggs, start with a bowl. Beat the eggs in it with a fork until the whites and yolks are uniformly mixed. Melt butter in a pan on high Heat. When the butter finishes melting, turn the Heat down to medium or low so that the butter doesn’t burn. Pour the eggs into the pan and let them sit for about ten seconds before you start scrambling them around with a spatula. Let the eggs cook for about thirty seconds or until they are mostly solid. Sprinkle grated Cheddar cheese on half of the omelette. Wait another twenty seconds or so, then fold over one side of the omelet onto itself. Wait another minute or so, then remove from pan and serve.

A basic omelet is good as is, but you can also add things to it when you pour in the eggs. Some possibilities include chopped-up green onions, mushrooms, chives, spinach, tomatoes, bell pepper strips, salsa, minced garlic, black olives, crumbled-cooked bacon, and ham cubes.

A basic omelette is an excellent place to start. It’s remarkably easy, and you can use whatever cheese, vegetables, and herbs you have lying around.

One of the first things anyone learns in a professional kitchen is how to make an omelette. I’ve been using this method for years, and it works every time.