Gordon Myers

The Ten-Egg Challenge: Part 10

Posted on Dec 10, 2012 at 9:29pm by Gordon Myers

Dawn of
The Final Day
-1 Egg Remains-

Day 10: Three-Egg Omelette

I was saving the omelette for last because I consider it to be the hardest. I'd never cooked an omelette before, and while it's fundamentally the same as scrambled in terms of ingredients, I knew that it was all about technique. Originally when I set out to do this challenge, I debated whether I wanted to make it a "dozen egg" challenge, but decided on ten. But the fact that today's challenge requires the use of three eggs instead of one, that does mean that if you have been challenging yourself at home, you should need exactly 12 eggs to complete this challenge, no more and no less. If you've been following along closely, you'll know that I've already gone over that as I hit a few bumps in the road trying to cook over medium. And today... I hit a few more. But as for the numbers, let's face it: you can't really make an omelette with just one egg. Even two would be pushing it. You really need at least three. And so, the three-egg omelette.

To make an omelette, you will need:

• A frying pan,
• Some butter,
• A spatula,
• A bowl,
• A whisk (or a fork),
• Some milk,
• Three eggs, and
• Ingredients of your choosing (I used mozzarella cheese)

Cover the pan with copious amounts of butter (and it is important that it is a non-stick pan!), and set the burner to a medium heat. Crack your eggs into a bowl, drop in a little bit of milk in there as well (1 tablespoon or less per egg), and whisk everything until it is a consistent color throughout. Once the butter is all melted and evenly distributed, pour out your egg milkxture into the pan, and wait. As you wait, you can check it periodically by slightly tilting the pan at an angle. You will probably see some of the liquid fall into whatever direction you tilted it while it is still cooking. Quickly tilt the pan back to being level again. When the liquid has really minimized, so that there isn't much left of it at all, then add your ingredients.

I decided I was going to attempt this omelette in the French style - aka a trifold omelette. The alternative is the American style (a bifold omelette), but I figured the French style would be fancier and more difficult to pull off. I was right. So much so, in fact, that I did a miserable job with it. More on that in a second. To cook an omelette the French style, you'll want to make sure you lay out your ingredients (in my case it was just cheese) in a straight line right down the center. Placement matters with the French style. Placement doesn't matter at all, however, with the American style; then you can just throw the ingredients wherever you like, since it will be flipped over on itself anyway. But for the French style, let it cook about another 45 seconds to a minute (making sure all the liquid is gone), then take your spatula and pull one third of it over the center, and then the other third of it (on the opposite side) right over that. Then grab the whole thing, and flip the whole thing over onto your serving plates, so that the two pieces you flipped over the center are now facing down.

I've strategically chosen the pictures to showcase on this post, because they are the ones that are zoomed in close enough so that it's not obvious that I did a terrible job with this omelette. But rest assured, I did a terrible job with this omelette. I need more practice. I actually ended up making two 3-egg omelettes tonight. The first one I did on a pan that was not a non-stick pan, which was a mistake. The second one I did in a smaller pan, but when it came time to do the flipping, I just didn't have control of the thing with the spatula, and I ended up turning the bottom half of the thing into a goopy mess (which is why I only showed the top piece). As you can see from the last photo, it was still nice and fluffy, so the flavor was at least satisfying. But my technique needs some work. This was only 1-star kitchen material at best.

For some reason, even though the chemical makeup is exactly the same as scrambled eggs, I still prefer scrambled eggs over omelettes. Then again, if someone with actual talent was doing this, and with the right combination of ingredients, perhaps that could change my mind. I don't know. Normally I would have attempted this again and again, until I got it right, but because of some dental work I'm having done tomorrow morning, I have strict instructions not to eat anything after midnight tonight. So... my Ten-Egg Challenge has to come to close in a somewhat unsatisfying way, with a poorly constructed omelette. But this won't be the last time I ever make eggs, so I will have further opportunties to perfect my own abilities. Overall, though, I must say that I am grateful I took on this challenge, as I feel much more prepared in the kitchen now, plus I've picked up some new favorite breakfast dishes! I'd strongly encourage anyone who's curious and motivated to try the whole challenge for themselves.

And now I'll go back through and rank everything on a scale of 1 to 10. I'm also going to give myself the requirement that I only use each number between 1 and 10 once, so that the ratings are actually useful to you. I'm giving the omelette a somewhat harsh 3 out of 10, but I fully admit that may be biased just because I'm still pretty bad at making them.