How to make the perfect omelet?

Restaurateur Ivan Shishkin explains

Not the one that grandma cooked in the oven, fluffy and porous, and not the one we were given in kindergarten, bluish-greenish, dense, as if made of rubber. This is all incredibly far from what is proudly called “omelet” in cooking. The familiar dish of golden-brown croutons with the addition of all sorts of fried foods, from sausage to potatoes, covered in beaten egg, also cannot be called an omelet. Rather, it is a frittata or a mutant version of it.

We're talking about the classic omelet, a variation of tender and creamy scrambled eggs encased in the "shell" of a barely curdled egg. Many will be unpleasantly surprised to hear such a definition, although it reflects the essence as much as possible. The cooking technique is very similar, and the result differs only in that a correctly made omelette ultimately turns out to be a single body, does not fall into pieces, does not break, is smooth and even on the outside and soft and uniform on the inside. Making a good omelet is a required skill and one of the standard tests when hiring a chef.

To prepare one serving of omelet you need three fresh eggs, a pinch of salt and a good tablespoon of butter. That's all. No milk! The classics call for adding a little black pepper, but in my opinion this doesn't make much sense. High-quality eggs have their own pleasant taste and smell, and do not need special seasoning. The tradition of adding spices everywhere, such as pepper in omelettes and nutmeg in mashed potatoes, comes from those distant times when cooks often had to mask suspicious odors. And they say the French cooks of the past simply didn’t really like the smell of potatoes.

Start by cracking three eggs into a bowl. You have to get used to not using a knife or the edge of a bowl to break the shell. I advise you to simply hit the egg on the table. This will avoid the appearance of small fragments. By the way, this technique is more likely to keep the yolk intact. Not important for omelettes, but the habit may come in handy if you want to get involved with cooking again. So, the eggs are in a bowl, it’s time to add salt and mix vigorously with a fork. Eggs for omelettes should not be beaten until foamy, but the mixture should be completely homogeneous.

You need to heat the frying pan on medium, closer to low heat. Almost any pan will do, no matter what the snobs say. It will make things a lot easier if the walls of the pan are flat, without a noticeable angle with the bottom. Throw the butter into the pan and let it melt. Avoid excessive heating and darkening of the oil. There is nothing dangerous in itself about the caramelization of butter solids; sometimes chefs do this on purpose. But if you lose sight of the situation, dark spots and foreign odors will appear in the omelette.

When the butter has melted and started to foam slightly. Soon after you pour the eggs into the frying pan, the protein begins to coagulate and the characteristic clumps form. Use a fork or silicone spatula to immediately remove the thickened areas, replacing them with a raw egg. The more often the contents of the pan are mixed, the more delicate the texture of the future omelet will be. At the moment when approximately two-thirds of the eggs have thickened, the intensity of stirring can be radically reduced and then stop disturbing the omelet altogether for half a minute. This creates the conditions for the formation of the future outer shell of the omelet. You should not be afraid that eggs that have not been in contact with the pan will remain raw. Ultimately, perfect readiness will be achieved due to the internal heat of the omelette already on the plate. The last, but critical stage of the omelette's stay in the pan is folding.

Folding. The omelette needs to be folded. At this moment, the shape of the omelet is programmed, and the result of all efforts is determined: it worked or not. At this point you can add the filling, but more on that later. Actually, the only task is to carefully use a fork, or better yet, a silicone spatula, to pick up the edge of the omelette, which, however, should easily separate from the frying pan, and fold the omelette. I prefer to fold in thirds, first one-third on one side to create a puffy crescent, then one-third on the opposite side. As a result, a lens-shaped roll with a joint in the middle lies on the frying pan. All you have to do is be clever and turn the omelette onto a plate with the seam facing inward, without scattering it all over the kitchen. After a short practice, a confident skill comes. The omelette is ready. It is pale yellow, smooth, with a couple of flirty folds.

The first and most obvious option is to add something directly to the eggs for a different taste. Chopped parsley, tarragon and chives are ideal, although the scope for creativity is unlimited. An omelette can be not only tender and pale, but also brutally fried. To do this, cook it over a slightly higher heat and stir less often. The light blush will become brighter and the flavor more intense if, right before folding, add a little more oil to the pan and let it sizzle slightly. Practice shows that when comparing two main omelet options - regular and rosy - it is difficult to choose one.

Yes. There's nothing wrong with adding something inside the omelette before folding it. Spinach, bacon, ricotta, salmon, mushrooms - whatever your heart desires. I prefer an omelette either “without everything” or with low-sour cottage cheese, green onions and smoked sun-dried tomatoes. A special item is the omelette with pastrami - smoked corned beef brisket.

Practice, practice, practice. After about the tenth omelette, understanding and confidence come, and after the fiftieth, the cook will be able to cook an omelette on an iron sheet over a fire in the forest.

Not for long. French chefs distinguish between three levels of doneness for an omelet, which is somewhat reminiscent of the levels of doneness of a steak. Baveuse - juicy, barely cooked; moelleuse - soft, velvety, creamy, just as described above; a point - fully fried. The cooking time range is two minutes, so the main thing is not to yawn.

Author: Ivan Shishkin, co-owner of Delicatessen and Yunost cafes