On omelette takes minutes to make, but a lifetime to master — and practice may eventually make perfect, hopes Tom Parker Bowles. 664658613 There was once a French cook, Madame Poulard, who was famed for the magnificence of her omelettes. The restaurant was in Normandy, but people would traverse seas, oceans and continents, simply for one mouthful of her puffy, burnished beauties.
Try as they might, no one could prise the recipe from her well-seasoned hands. What was it that made her omelettes quite so legendary? A secret splash of water, a sly glug of double cream, even a smidgin of foie gras ? The truth, when it eventually emerged, was none of the above. ‘I break some good eggs in a bowl,’ she said, ‘and I beat them well.
I put a good piece of butter in the pan, I throw the eggs into it and I shake constantly.’ That, she declared, was it. Simplicity can be deceiving, as the omelette is one of those dishes that takes minutes to make, but a lifetime to master.
I’ve been cooking them up weekly for many years (an omelette with a crisp green salad is something of a Sunday-night ritual) and have a dedicated non-stick pan. Yet, despite this, I still haven’t quite got it right. I like them runny in the middle and always seem to end up with a little of the inside oozing messily across the plate.
Hey ho. The presentation may be lacking, but the taste is divine. Chef Rowley Leigh is an omelette master who honed his skills early, flipping dozens every day at Joe Allen in C.
