One of my favorite things to eat is a really good omelet. For such a simple ingredient, eggs are surprisingly complex. You can very quickly ruin a good egg breakfast. The fastest way is to cook the eggs too fast. When you do that you lose most of the flavor and end up with a taste that doesn’t cut it. By taking your time and cooking on low you can maximize the creamy taste in eggs.
So if you take anything away from BrainFuel today, take this: cook your eggs really slow.
Maybe that’s obvious but it took me a lot of experimentation before I figured that out. That’s exactly why when I was in Brasil at a hotel I was saddened to see a grown man cooking omelets for breakfast with the heat on high. He was cooking a full blown omelet in about 5 minutes! It should take 15 minutes, minimum! It might not have been his fault, as there was a line waiting for omelets that morning, but still. He puts breakfast chefs the world over to shame.
There are a number of ways to top off a great omelet. Surprisingly a touch of sour cream is one of them. That and some good hot sauce. Cheese and other toppings like ham, bacon, and some vegetables are best cooked inside the omelet.
If you’re interested, I found a picture guide to making an egg omelet. It appears to be rather exhaustive. Then if you’re really hungry, go take a gander at these omelets.
19 responses to “Making the Perfect Omelet”
I pride myself on being a master chef (trained even!) and low heat is great advice. Omelets can be simple or real complex, but the magic is in the preparation. A dash of adobo or fresh garlic or grilled veggies is never a disappointment. I always use shredded cheddar or pepperjack as a final embellishment.
Way to go on the topics Chris. My favorite blog hands down.
I love cooking omelets too, I think we should have a cook off and show off our omlets… what do you think?
Thanks Armand! Glad you’re enjoying the topics. I don’t think i have ever tried putting garlic in my eggs. I’ll have to give that a try.
Alan: You’re on! I’m making mine on Saturday. This should be fun.
See I think you have an unfair advantage because I will have cooked and posted mine before you are even awake. You could copy and tweak mine lol…
Why don’t we call it The Great Omelet Cookoff and make it a weekend event. You have all weekend to cook an omelet that will inspire the troops.
Then on Monday we post the pictures.
I know you were talking about cooking slowly but man that is way longer than 15mins… are you cooking purely on the heat off the sun and using a flat boulder?
lol… this could turn into the scissors, paper, stone of the internet… keep cooking different omlets and posting them each weekend to see who does the best!
Haha, they do have stories of people cooking eggs on the sidewalk. I have never tried it but it could probably be done as a pan on the asphault would probably heat up way past 150 degrees (F) in the summertime.
Holy cow… I forgot you were in Arizona, that fricken hot!!!
What I was going to suggest is that we can meet afternoon my time or something and let the public choose a winner, that way we can post them at the same time.
Fire me a mail or something and we can battle it out omelet style!
haha http://www.giantomelette.org there are even omelet fesivals we could go to lol…
Hey! You can’t do research! *Chris turns to the Food Network in the hope that Emeril has an Omelet special*
My Omelet is bigger than yours!!
Lmao…. I took my kids to a think called treefest today so never did the omelet thing (I am still not convinced of the spelling btw). I am going to check out http://www.cowparade-edinburgh.co.uk/ tomorrow but will come home and cook my omelette 😉
Got my badge on the site now btw 😀 😀 😀 Over the moon!
P.S. I have an idea which I will pitch in the forums once I am in…
Hey, don’t worry about it. I was in a big rush this morning and despite my best efforts my omelet came out overcooked. So I’m going to make a good one on Sunday morning.
excuses excuses lol…
Here’s mine http://www.azcazandco.com/?p=130
If I may suggest something…
To add fluffiness to your egg, if you like, instead of adding milk to the mixture add water.
Sorry to disagree, but a “perfect” omelet should not be browned. It should be the color of eggs only and should not be dry. Secondly, it should be cooked relatively quickly at medium to medium-high heat rather than low heat. And who wants a crispy border to an omelet?
My omelet making experience was through the military. For 4 years I cook breakfast, but before we opened the “chow line” I always made my own omelet the way I wanted. To this day, I am little arrogant when I go out eat breakfast foods, no one has made an omelet as mouth-watering as I.