Читать книгу A Course of Lectures on the Principles of Domestic Economy and Cookery - Juliet Corson - Страница 10

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First, I will make a plain breakfast omelette. Use for two or three people not more than three eggs. You can not very well manage more than three in an ordinary pan. It is better to make several omelettes, especially because people are not apt to come to the table all at once, and an omelette to be nice must be eaten directly it is cooked. Say three eggs; break them into a cup or bowl; add to them a saltspoonful of salt, quarter of a saltspoonful of pepper, and mix them just enough to thoroughly break the whites and yolks together. Put over the fire a frying pan with a heaping teaspoonful of butter in it. Let the butter get hot. If you like an omelette brown let the butter begin to brown. After pouring the eggs into the hot frying pan break the omelette on the bottom of the pan with a fork, just a little, so that you let the uncooked part run down on the bottom of the pan. I do not mean to stir the omelette as you would scrambled eggs, but just break it a little until it is cooked as much as you want it. French breakfast omelettes are always cooked so that they are slightly juicy in the middle; in order to accomplish that result of course you have them still liquid before you begin to turn them. When the omelette is done as much as you want it run a fork under one side of it and fold it half over, then fold it again; loosen it from the pan; have a platter hot, and turn the omelette out. Serve it the moment it is done.

Next I will make a light omelette. The same rule—three eggs, whites and yolks separate; beat the whites to a stiff froth; add seasoning to the yolks in the same proportion as before; mix the yolks slightly with the seasoning; after the white has been beaten quite stiff and the yolk seasoned, mix them very lightly together; have a heaping tablespoonful of butter in the frying pan over the fire, hot, just as for the plain omelette; mix the whites and the yolks together, without breaking down the white. Of course the lightness of the omelette depends on keeping all the air in the white of the egg that you have beaten into it. Put the eggs into the hot frying pan; run the fork under the omelette and lift it from the pan as it cooks; lift the cooked portions from the pan, and let them fall back on the top of the omelette, taking care not to pat the omelette down at all; but just lift the cooked portions and let them fall back on the top of the omelette, until it is done as much as you like. Usually this omelette is served soft—as soft as ice cream. When it is done as much as you want it, push it to the side of the pan, gently, and then turn it out on a hot platter. Always remember that the success of an omelette depends upon the quickness with which it is made and served; because, in the first place, you make it light by beating air into it; then, of course, the heat expands the air, and that makes the omelette still lighter; and you must get it served before the hot air escapes.