Creek Running North

The secret to cooking omelets is to use a pan on a much lower flame than one would for fried eggs. A 12-inch non-stick skillet is ideal for three-egg omelets, and should nonetheless be lubed with a bit of good cooking oil — olive oil being my favorite — and the oil allowed to heat thoroughly. If the omelet filling requires frying before you assemble the omelet, you can do so in the same pan, but be sure when you remove the filling that the pan is smooth and slick. Add more oil if necessary and let it heat.

The base of the omelet is plain, unadulterated egg, three or four of them, beaten with a fork until nearly uniform, with perhaps a stripe or two of white among the yolk. Making sure the pan’s surface is uniformly hot and slick, with oil coating well up the sides, one pours the egg mixture into the center with a flourish, then lifts the pan and tilts it so that egg covers the entire bottom, running up perhaps a little on the sides. If the pan is the right temperature on its medium flame, the sides will cook through almost instantly while the center remains a pool of liquid. With a bamboo spatula, push the cooked sides slightly toward the center — an inch or so — tilting the pan to flood the space you’ve freed with egg.

In three or four minutes, the egg should be nearly cooked through with only a bit of uncooked liquid atop it, in the center, and bubbles may have formed in the center above the flame. Shake the pan by its handle: the egg should move freely in the pan. If it does not, use a lower flame or more oil next time, or both. If the egg sticks in the pan, gently try to lift it free with the bamboo spatula. It may tear, in which case you may as well just fill the omelet at this point, cutting your losses.

But if the egg moves freely in the pan clear the kitchen of onlookers, move the pan to a place where you have a few feet of airspace, and breathe for a moment. Toss the egg into the air with a flip of pan. A round-sided, well-oiled pan will send the egg toward the front of the pan, up the side and vertical into the air, where angular momentum will flip it and gravity pull it back into the pan, upside down. This is easier than it sounds, but if trepiditious you can always run through a few dozen practice eggs.

The egg flipped, you return the pan to the stove, draw an imaginary line bisecting the egg, and put your filling in the center of one of the halves so designated. An omelet’s filling is best arranged with an eye toward symmetry, the eventual flavors in combination in each bite, and prevention of loss out the sides. Fold the omelet: cover the filling. A few more minutes on the flame will meld flavors, warm the filling.

I have in this past week filled omelets with handsful of herbs from the garden, savory and oregano, sage and sorrel, chopped fine and added raw or sauteed first in olive oil and then removed to a plate to await the eggs. I have filled them with wilted dandelion greens. I have filled them with Genovese basil from the farmer’s market, a bit of sticky white chevre and a couple tablespoons of chopped walnuts added in a moment of blinding inspiration. A few days ago I rummaged through the kitchen for omelet filling and found a jar of pickled fern fiddleheads, a gift from Kat, and a piece of goat brie we bought before our hike this month, and made a Kat omelet of fiddleheads and goat brie. Or that same cheese and a sauce of roasted dried chiles. Sometimes I add to the eggs, before beating them, a pinch of truffle salt: an extravagance of twenty dollars when I was employed, three ounces black Abruzzi truffles ground fine and mixed with sea salt, and if we use a pinch a day our truffle salt budget will run ten dollars a year. It is one of the best things I have ever tasted, and adds savor to the eggs, though it would not have worked well with today’s basil and walnut omelet, I am thinking.

Tonight I took three long japanese eggplants, fried them well for our dinner with basil and garlic and oregano from the garden, and about a quarter cup of olive oil. Tomorrow comes the Imam baldi omelet. It may be worth it, this waking up.