Food Wishes - French Omelet

Hello this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with...

The French omelet.

That's right! you might not think you need a video for how to make an omelette

but unless you've already somehow mastered this magical technique, I really think you do

and it won't be until you make one of these and try it yourself.

when you'll realize just how badly you needed to know how to do this

since, quite simply put, it's unlike any other omelette experience.

So with that, let's go ahead and get started.

And as you may have heard, to make an omelette you got to break a few eggs.

Three large ones to be exact.

And of course, farm fresh or at least the freshest highest quality eggs you can manage.

Please do not buy your eggs at the same place you buy your motor oil.

And then to our three large eggs, the only other things we're gonna add are a pinch of salt

and a few drops of cold water, like a half a teaspoon

and other than a ridiculous amount of butter, that's gonna be it for our ingredients.

And then what we'll do at this point is grab a whisk and bust those eggs right in the yolks.

And we're gonna whisk those for a minute or two or until they turn sort of liquidy.

Right when you first start whisking, they're gonna be kind of thick and viscous.

But you'll see after about a minute or so the mixture is gonna kind of thin out

and you know you're done when the eggs drip off the whisk like this.

Okay, so we want to make sure our eggs are well beaten.

We want no visible egg whites at all.

So those are looking good

and once that's been accomplished we'll simply set that aside and head to the stove to prep our pan.

And ideally we're gonna use about a 9 or 10 inch non-stick

which we will place over medium-high heat and melt a tablespoon of butter.

Except when a french chef is making an omelet and they tell you to put a tablespoon of butter in,

they always mean more like two tablespoons.

And what we'll do is let that melt over medium-high heat.

As we stand by armed with hopefully a large flexible rubber spatula,

one that's heat proof of course.

And what we'll do as soon as that butter's melted but before it starts to sizzle,

we will go ahead and quickly pour in our eggs.

At which point we'll begin a three-stage process

which is the scrambling the spreading and the folding.

So we'll dump our eggs in and we'll start working them over with a circular motion with our spatula.

And in culinary school, they taught us to do this in a figure eight

but i never did master that.

And I found it splashed eggs up the side of the pan

so I prefer using more of the circular motion you see here.

While at the same time sort of shaking the pan.

And if you notice since these eggs are still very loose.

when I shake the pan it kind of levels them out.

Well, basically we're gonna continue this scrambling stage until that stops happening.

Okay, when our eggs start firming up enough where we can't really do that

and we sort of have to spread with a spatula even amount

which is sort of where we're at right now.

What we want to do is turn our heat down to low

and we will go from scrambling to spreading.

And all we're doing is sort of moving around the runny eggs to less runny spots

and what we'll do is continue spreading that mixture around on low until our surface is wet but not runny,

which is what I have right here.

Okay, so we don't have pools of runny egg but the surface is still very wet, very moist.

And once it reaches this point what we'll do is turn off our heat and fold it up.

So we'll start at the handle and roll perpendicularly to the other side

but not all the way.

We want to stop a couple inches away from the edge

because what we'll do is use our spatula to fold that edge towards the middle

so that we somehow someway end up with the seam on the top.

And because these eggs are nice and soft and custardy, they're very easy to shape

and at this point you might think we're ready to serve but we're not.

What we're gonna do is toss in a couple small chunks of butter.

Not necessarily as much as I just did but a few chunks.

And what we'll do is let that melt and kind of push that under the omelet to lubricate it

or at least that's what the French chefs say.

They say it's gonna be easier to get the omelet out of the pan if we do this.

But I don't think that's the real reason.

I really think it's because they want us to add more butter,

plus I think the texture of your omelet is gonna be better if this sits for a minute in the pan

but anyway we're gonna toss in a little extra butter and kind of spread it over and push it underneath.

And what we'll do once that's melted is sort of push our omelette to the edge of the pan.

At which point we can carefully flop it over onto a plate making sure the seam side goes down

because the ultimate goal of a french omelet is a perfectly smooth glistening surface.

And of course once it's on the plate you can shape it any way you want.

Some people like to leave the ends open but I like to sort of taper them.

Although maybe after this I will reconsider

but anyway we're going to plate our omelette and finally it's time to eat.

Just as soon as we add some more butter.

No, i'm not kidding,

the last official step for any real french omelet is to brush or spread a little bit of butter on the top to sort of give that surface a beautiful shine.

But once that's done finally we can eat

with a little bit of watercress and of course some toasted bread.

And I was just about to say I could have made that a lot nicer if I wasn't filming it

but you know what that's not actually true.

This is probably one of the better French omelets I've ever made,

which reminds me who cares what it looks like

as people in the know know the true beauty of a french omelet lies within.

So let me go ahead and cut in so you can see what I'm talking about.

You know, I usually don't need a fork and knife for my omelet

but I wanted to get a nice clean cut so you would be able to see this.

Because of our three stages of scrambling spreading and the folding

we basically created layers and layers of beautiful custardy eggs,

this is like an entirely different food than your typical overcooked golden brown dry American omelet.

I mean, look at that! It's just so insanely creamy and delicious.

And by the way, if you want to add some of your favorite fillings before you fold this up go ahead.

I mean you are the Suzanne Plichette of your French omelette

but if you've never made one of these before, I highly suggest you make it as shown

just so you can taste the magic that is the pure and true French omelet

but of course a little bit of cayenne never hurt.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

But anyway that's it my method for doing French omelets

which by the way is the only omelet we're allowed to have wine with at breakfast

like maybe a nice cold glass of Sauvignon Blanc.

And i'm not sure if that's the best pairing but I do know how to pronounce it.

But anyway, whether you're gonna make this to impress someone at some fancy breakfast

or you just can't figure out what to eat on some rainy weeknight,

I really do hope you give this a try soon.