The OMG Omelet
Inspired by omelet recipes from the 1984 cookbook, The Frugal Gourmet, this is a Kitchen Tapestry original.
I will give credit to The Frugal Gourmet, Jeff Smith, for teaching me how to make an omelet in one of his television cooking shows sometime during its reign on PBS in the late 80s. I grew up in a household with a French Canadian mother who taught herself how to be a pretty good cook, but strangely never prepared omelets, despite its French underpinnings. I think the first omelet I ever ate was at a Waffle House.
Waffle House used to an unbelievably good omelet that you could not get anywhere else because of the unique method they use to mix the eggs. The last time I was in a Waffle House, however, they have discontinued this practice and indeed, omelets were no longer even on the menu. They will make them for you if you ask them, but gone were the soda fountain milkshake mixers they used to use to whip their eggs to an airy, fluffy mixture that made an equally airy, fluffy omelet.
The Waffle House cook used to crack two eggs into a stainless steal mixing cup, plugged it into the milkshake mixing machine, and let it whirl for about a minute. At 18,000 revolutions per minute, this beat air into the completely homogenized eggs and therein was the great texture and flavor of a Waffle House omelet.
A Few Omelet Tips & Tricks
While Jeff Smith didn't advocate milkshake mixers as a method to blend yolks and whites together, he did help me gain confidence in the basics techniques to cook an omelet, which is ultimately pretty easy if you know a few tips and tricks:
Use a non-stick skillet with fluted edges.
Use butter. Period.
Mix the eggs ahead of time and allow the mixture to come up to room temperature for a half-hour or so. The omelet will cook more evenly that way.
Use medium high heat to warm up the skillet. Crank the heat to high when you first introduce the egg mixture to the skillet, then back the heat down to medium as the eggs start to solidify.
You don't need to flip the omelet to cook it all the way through.
Don't fold the omelet in the skillet. Instead, allow the omelet fold in half onto itself as you let it slip out of the pan onto your plate.
I came up with this recipe in the 1990s and it quickly became My Number One Fan’s favorite breakfast. It is hearty, filling and delicious and I learned soon enough that two eggs for this omelet was plenty. In order to recreate the Waffle House method of creating the light, fluffy texture, you will need an immersion blender.
The OMG Omelet
Ingredients
- 4 eggs
- 1 14.5 oz can petite diced tomatoes (like, Hunts)
- 2 tsp minced garlic
- 2 green onions, chopped
- 4 oz dry red wine
- 1 tsp Italian seasonings
- 4 oz grated sharp cheddar cheese
- 4 sausage patties (like, Jimmy Dean Hot)
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp butter
Instructions
- Fry the sausage patties in a skillet over medium high heat until done and slightly browned. Set aside on paper towels. Once cooled, chop the patties thoroughly and set aside.
- Heat the olive oil in a sauce pan, then sauté the onion over medium heat until they collapse, 3-5 minutes.
- Add the garlic and cook another minute, then add the tomatoes, Italian seasonings and red wine. Turn the heat to medium high heat and bring the mixture to a hard simmer.
- Stirring frequently, cook the tomatoes and allow the liquid to evaporate so the sauce reduces until it is a thick consistency, like a salsa.
- Turn the heat lower as the tomato mixture comes to its final stages of reducing. Once you have the sauce the consistency of a salsa, take it off the heat, but leave it uncovered so it will continue to lose moisture, thickening the sauce a little more.
- Crack two eggs in the immersion blender mixing cup and add a teaspoon of cold water. Blend the eggs for about a minute with the immersion blender on high speed. The mixture will develop a froth on top of the eggs as you blend them.
- Put a skillet with fluted edges on medium high heat and melt the butter. Add the egg mixture to the pan, and turn the heat up to high. The egg mixture in contact with the bottom of the pan will begin to solidify almost immediately. Push the egg mixture with an inverted spatula to the center of the pan as the eggs solidify, allowing the eggs that are still liquid to fill in the gaps.
- As the omelet continues to solidify, turn down the heat to medium and at some point, you will be lifting up the edge of the omelet with a spatula and tilting the pan, allowing the still liquid egg mixture on top to run under the solidifying eggs. Maintain this technique until the top of the omelet is no longer runny.
- Allow the omelet to cook a bit more, being careful not to burn the eggs. You want the bottom of the omelet to be slightly browned, but only slightly.
- Put 4-5 tablespoons of the tomato mixture on one half of the omelet. If you place the skillet handle at the six o'clock position, you are putting the tomato mixture only from six o'clock to 12 o'clock. Put the crumbled sausage on top of the tomato mixture, and then the sharp cheddar cheese on top of that.
- To remove the omelet from the pan, turn it out with the side of the omelet that has the sausage, tomatoes and cheese such that it will be sliding from the skillet onto the serving plate first. As the heavy side of the omelet arrives onto the plate, tilt the skillet so that the second half of the omelet folds onto itself. The heat from the omelet will melt the cheese in a minute or two. You can hold this omelet, covered, in a 200°F oven while you make the second omelet.
- Rinse the skillet out with cold water and dry completely. Then, proceed with steps 6 through 11 for the second omelet.
