The French Omelette – Soft, Shiny, and Superior

There is no more terrifying experience at culinary school than the French omelette exam. With your classmates rooting you on, and chef instructors watching intently, you head to the stove, with little more than three eggs, and a little butter…okay, a lot of butter…but that’s it.

It’s just you and the ingredients, with no way to fake perfection. A French omelette, or omelet, as we Americans call it, is 10% ingredients, and 90% technique. The good news is, the technique is really simple. The bad news is, it takes a little practice to perfect. But, after making a few hundred of these, you could probably do this half asleep, which is how many brunch cooks actually do it. Just be sure to start the folding as soon as the surface is wet, but not runny.

Feel free to stuff this with your favorite fillings, before folding up, but if you’ve never had one of these before, I highly recommend making one as shown. You’ll be amazed at just how delicious these few ingredients can be, when elevated using this method. Either way, I really do hope you give this a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients for one omelette:

3 large farm-fresh eggs

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon cold water

2 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 for the pan, and 1/2 for when it’s done)

cayenne or white pepper to taste, optional

A Simple Italian Omelette – It's What I Had for Breakfast

I know some of you enjoy the occasional "What I Had for Breakfast" post and photo, so I thought I would do a quick video version of my breakfast this morning. I made a very simple, very thin Italian omelette, filled with goat cheese and chives.

I'm calling this an "Italian" omelette for a couple reasons. First, I used olive oil instead of butter, and secondly, I cooked the eggs quickly, in a hot pan, letting them get a little golden-brown. The traditional French omelettes are thicker, and cooked much more gently.

Anyway, this is just a quick, simple video recipe that shows a nice technique for lifting the edges and letting the raw egg run underneath. This helps cook the omelette faster and also gives it a nice texture. Enjoy!



UPDATE: What They Had for Breakfast
This is from iliea (the cheese girl) who wrote, "just thought you might be interested in what i had for breakfst too. this is a picture of frog hollow peaches, blueberries from the Ferry bldg farmers market, topped with Strauss Creamery whole milk yogurt, and finished with Snyders Farm oak wildflower honey. Oh, so good."

Thanks, Iliea!