We wanted omelets that were easy and quick. Many recipe books instruct the reader to turn the omelets in the pan. Often, they don’t fold well or break apart. We needed a solution to that. We wanted them to cook evenly, the interior set but the outside just burnished with a little gold but no tough skin.
Problem 1: Cooking the Omelet Properly with No Skin on the Outside
Omelets tend to be overdone on the outside when they are well set on the inside. That is especially true with thicker omelets, when the pan is overloaded a bit.
Problem 2: Folding the Omelet in the Pan
Omelets are often torn when they are folded in the pan. As we made more omelets, we would get better at it but we still had too many failures.
Problem 3: Getting the Omelet Out of the Pan without Tearing.
Especially with large omelets or those with lots of filling, they often tore when we tried to lift them out of the pan.
The Solutions to Omelet Issues
Cooking the Omelet Properly
Getting the omelet to cook through without burning was a challenge. We remedied that in our second marathon by lifting the edges of the omelet as it cooked to let the uncooked egg flow under the omelet and onto the pan surface. To finish cooking, we took the pan off the heat, added the filling, and covered it with a lid. The lid trapped heat coming from the hot pan to cook the omelet through.
Folding the Omelet on the Plate
Instead of folding the omelet in the pan we simply tipped the pan and let the omelet slide onto a plate. As the omelet slipped onto the plate, with a twist of the wrist, we folded the omelet onto itself on the plate. (It’s easy to do; in two or three tries, you’ll have the method mastered.)
The omelets were cooking properly and folding and removing them from the pan was no longer a challenge. Omelets were much easier, and we declared a victory. We recorded our methods, developed a couple of recipes, and described the method in an email.
Mastering the Cook Time for Omelets
We thought we were done. But as we cooked more omelets, omelets of different sizes and with different fillings, we found ourselves lifting the lid to see if the top of the omelet had set yet. And when we lifted the lid, it slowed the cooking.
We wondered if our method could be improved. We started making omelets a third time.
The raw egg on top of the omelet was the problem. Lifting the edge and letting the raw egg flow under the omelet and then covering the omelet with a lid helped. But we didn’t like covering the omelet and cooking “blind” and we wanted a quicker method.
We started scrambling the eggs, stopping when the eggs were partially cooked. We then patted the eggs into a smooth layer and let them finish cooking without a lid. It worked. It was quick and easy. And doing it on higher heat cut the cooking time in half.
