is a reliable resource in the construction of any impromptu
meal. To prepare an omelette remove the strings from the
eggs, and add to the latter a little not exceeding a tahle-
spoonful of water, some cream or fused butter, and beat
the mixture. Keep the omelette thick, and to ensure this use
a special ovielette-i>an — that is, a small frying-pan six inches
in diameter. Let the hutter or lard be hot, and flavour
it by frying in it a small piece of onion✪ Omelette, -which you remove
when done. Pour the preparation on to the hot fat, keep
it thick together, and fry quickly and carefully. The
moment the bottom of the omelette is set, withdraw the
pan ; do not attempt to turn the omelette, hut fold up its
sides so as to treble it, put it on its dish, place it a moment
in the oven, garnish, and send to table.
With good management, the whole of the white of egg
may be incorporated with the omelette. Most modern
recipes seem to rule so ; but some, amongst them all
cookery-books up to 1840, prefer to omit a number up to
half of all the whites. This prevalence of the yolks makes
the omelette more tasty, and loose or tender ; indeed,
Kitchiner, p. 348, thinks this suppression of a part of the
whites so important that he says no art could prevent the
omelette being hard if too much of the white were left
in it.
An omelette should not be greasy, not be burnt, not
coloured, and not even too much done. It is one of the
commonest mistakes of inexperienced cooks to try to make
an omelette look like a pancake ; to prevent its burning,
they fry it slowly, and thus make it dense, hard, and
indigestible. The best omelette takes the least work and
preposition a) of lameMe, diminutive of lame, Latin lamina, a thin plate.
This definition is as erroneous as the common cook’s conception of an
omelette as a pancake. An omelette is not thin, but thick, while a pan-
cake should be thin ; an omelette should not be browned, while a pancake
ought to be browned ; an omelette should not be baked on both sides, while
a pancake ought to be made crisp on both sides. We therefore hold the
transition from amelette. to alume.lk disproved by the facts themselve.'<.
OMELETTES, COMPOUND AND SAIT) UP)' 595
time. An omelette, like a custard, should just be set with-
out being coherent ; it should be pulpy without being fluid.
It should break before the mere spoon or fork ; if it requires
a knife for division, it is spoiled.
The most patronized form of omelette is that Aux Fines
Herbes, mainly represented by parsley. Arabian Omelette of
Ostrich Eggs is an invention of French cooks, dating from
the period of a visit which Napoleon III. made to Algiers.
The ostrich eggs came from a farm. The recipe from the
cook of the Algiers Bey can be seen in D.D., 773. All the
fat used was oil. An ostrich egg is equal to the contents
of ten hens’ eggs.
The number of compound omelettes which may be made
is, of course, very great ; there are several hundreds of them
recorded in French culinary works, being the majority of
preparations of eggs collected in several monographs. Very
few of them are anything but coarse mixtures, and have any
unity or thoughtful congruity about them.
Page 375 · 1 recipe record on this page
Presented as published in 1895. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
is a reliable resource in the construction of any impromptu meal. To prepare an omelette remove the shells from the eggs, and add to the latter a little not exceeding a tablespoonful of water, some cream or fused butter, and beat the mixture. Keep the omelette thick, and to ensure this use a special omelette-pan — that is, a small frying-pan six inches in diameter. Let the hutter or lard be hot, and flavour it by frying in it a small piece of onion, -which you remove when done. Pour the preparation on to the hot fat, keep it thick together, and fry quickly and carefully. The moment the bottom of the omelette is set, withdraw the pan ; do not attempt to turn the omelette, hut fold up its sides so as to treble it, put it on its dish, place it a moment in the oven, garnish, and send to table.
With good management, the whole of the white of egg may be incorporated with the omelette. Most modern recipes seem to rule so ; but some, amongst them all cookery-books up to 1840, prefer to omit a number up to half of all the whites. This prevalence of the yolks makes the omelette more tasty, and loose or tender ; indeed, Kitchiner, p. 348, thinks this suppression of a part of the whites so important that he says no art could prevent the omelette being hard if too much of the white were left in it.
An omelette should not be greasy, not be burnt, not coloured, and not even too much done. It is one of the commonest mistakes of inexperienced cooks to try to make an omelette look like a pancake ; to prevent its burning, they fry it slowly, and thus make it dense, hard, and indigestible. The best omelette takes the least work and
[illustration: Etymology and definition discussion of omelette]
OMELETTES, COMPOUND AND SAUTED UP
time. An omelette, like a custard, should just be set without being coherent ; it should be pulpy without being fluid. It should break before the mere spoon or fork ; if it requires a knife for division, it is spoiled.
The most patronized form of omelette is that Aux Fines Herbes, mainly represented by parsley. Arabian Omelette of Ostrich Eggs is an invention of French cooks, dating from the period of a visit which Napoleon III. made to Algiers. The ostrich eggs came from a farm. The recipe from the cook of the Algiers Bey can be seen in D.D., 773. All the fat used was oil. An ostrich egg is equal to the contents of ten hens’ eggs.
The number of compound omelettes which may be made is, of course, very great ; there are several hundreds of them recorded in French culinary works, being the majority of preparations of eggs collected in several monographs. Very few of them are anything but coarse mixtures, and have any unity or thoughtful congruity about them.
Records on this page
Omelette