Scarborough Fair Omelettes
This is a horrible, grey picture of breakfast; it does the omelette no favours. The reason it’s a lousy picture is because it was taken just a few seconds before we ate at the breakfast table in the sunshine and therefore did not have the usual benefit of the bright glow of the fluorescents nor the dark background of the kitchen countertops. Though warm and fuzzy, sunshine does not cut the mustard for picture taking.
A few months ago, we stopped making omelettes for breakfast. We had really gotten carried away with making them every weekend for about two months before they finally got a little tired. They were delicious while they lasted (we were partial to herb omelettes with garlic, shallots and parmesan, and maple elk sausages on the side) but it had gone on long enough. Recently, we experienced a revival of the omelettes; both hungry on Sunday, with two pots of young, spindly herbs growing in the kitchen windowsill, I lapsed into omelette mode. From the fridge, I extracted a couple of handfuls of fresh herbs, eggs and a hunk of parmesan. As I was chopping the parsley and thyme, I couldn’t help but think of the Simon and Garfunkel song and then realized that we actually had the last two lyrics of the chorus in the windowsill. Ergo, Scarborough Fair Omelettes. How adorable.
Slowly, I am getting better and better at making these things. I once heard a local chef say that you could measure a cook’s skill by how well he/she makes a simple omelette. So, of course, this is something I took to heart and have been trying to perfect. Tri-folded, not browned, still a tiny bit runny in the middle, fluffy and flavourful: this is what I try to achieve with each one (except the ones I make for Marc because he doesn’t like any runniness when it comes to eggs). After making quite a few, I find the biggest challenges are a) not browning – sometimes the pan is slightly too hot which browns the butter and then the omelette – and, b) flipping them in the pan to cook the runniness away. Part B, I blame on our pan because the edges are too sharply angled to get a really good, mid-air, one-handed, flapjack-style flip out of it. Part A is just timing and stovetop fickleness and shall remain my challenge ever more.
Someday, I will win the omelette smackdown.