The Classic Omelette

Until about a year and a half ago, I'd never successfully made an omelette.  I could fry an egg, but the light and fluffy omelette seemed forever outside my reach.  Thanks to Alton Brown, however, this situation has reversed itself.  Let me tell you what I did wrong, then I'll walk you through the classic 2-egg omelette.

1. You need to butter the pan.  So it's a beautiful, brand-new Teflon non-stick pan?  Doesn't matter.  Butter it.
2. You need to use warm eggs.  The difference in temperature between the top and bottom of the omelette was ruining them.  Get eggs to room temperature before cooking.  You can do this by letting them sit out, or by putting them in a bowl with hot water for a couple of minutes.
3. Don't whisk the eggs.  Whisking adds air to the mixture, which is (in this case) a bad thing.  Air is an insulator, and it gets you in trouble with that temperature differential again.  Mix with a fork using a round-and-round motion, but don't add extra air.

• Bonus tip:  not from Mr Brown, but cool:  Never use salt when cooking eggs.  Creole seasoning is 90% salt, and adds a little bit of extra taste.
• Bonus tip:  Get yourself a silicone spatula. It makes this (and many other cooking activities) SO MUCH easier.  They're not expensive.  Get one. Get rid of all other spatulas.  There's nothing a rubber spatula can do better than a silicone one.

Ingredients:

• 2 Warm Eggs
• Pinch of Creole Seasoning (or salt, or some salty seasoning)
• Butter

Steps:

1. Crack 2 eggs into a bowl and add a dash of salt, Creole seasoning, or similar.  Mix well.
2. Add nonstick pan to stovetop on medium heat.  Add butter to pan and let melt.
3. Pour eggs into buttered pan.  Use silicone spatula to scrape out bowl, then stir mixture until re-mixed. The time it takes to scrape the bowl is enough for the bottom layer of the eggs to start to firm up; re-mixing them ensures that everything will firm up about the same time. 
4. Let it sit.  Don't do anything.  Seriously, don't touch it.  It'll cook bottom to top, don't touch it until it's cooked halfway up.
5. Add what you're gonna add.  More on this later.
6. Now, use your silicone spatula to loosen the edges of the omelette.  Work your way around, then underneath.  If you shake the pan, the omelette should move around.
7. By this point, the eggs should be mostly firm.  Use the spatula to fold the right third of the omelette over towards the middle.  Shake the pan again to make sure everything is still moving well.  Get out a plate and hold it near the pan with your left hand.



See what I did there?

8. Pick up the omelette pan in your right and and tilt it so that the omelette starts to slide out onto the plate.  Once it gets halfway there, twist your right wrist to "fold" the omelette over onto itself.



Triple-fold complete.

9. Serve and eat.

Add-ins:

• Whatever you want.  I had feta cheese and this pineapple-habanero salsa and it was epic.  Once you nail the basic technique, adding whatever you want will be a piece of cake.  I have a wife and daughter who thrive on protein, so a variety of omelettes in the morning makes for a happy house.