Why is it that the simplest recipes are always the hardest to make?
I’ve spent months (I wish that was an exaggeration) trying to achieve a perfectly round poached egg, only to realise that the secret to spherical perfection lies in a strainer.
I hadn’t even been able to make my DIY garlic bread as punchy as the supermarket kind until I found out the pros add garlic powder to the butter as well as roasted cloves.
And now, the members of Reddit’s r/food have revealed the secrets to another deceptively difficult meal.
A user asked “How do I make an omelette fluffy and thick like in the restaurants?”, and a chef responded that the pan size, flame height, and utensils most of us use are all wrong.
Start with a smaller pan
“Chef checking in – be sure to choose a smallish pan,” u/qvindtar replied.
“Too big and you’ll have too much surface area to build up substantial curds.”
Delia Smith agrees, writing that “the size of the pan is vital”. Too big, and your omelette will be thin and rubbery; too small, and it’ll become unfoldably thick.
We should also opt for a “Low flame” with “plenty [of] butter in the pan,” u/qvindtar added.
Cookbook author Lisa Bryan is on the chef’s side, saying that the only failsafe path to “pillowy” omelettes is “cooking low and slow.”
Lastly, the commenter recommended using chopsticks over a spatula for the task.
“With your eggs beaten and a low flame pour the eggs in and use chopsticks to create nice small curds,” they shared.
“This does two things: it gives a creamy consistency without adding extra dairy, and it gives a good structure by adding air, so they’re nice and fluffy.”
Food Republic says that “there’s one dish in particular that really lets chopsticks shine: the omelette,” be it a Japanese omurice recipe or a Western kind.
What’s the best way to fold an omelette?
To be honest, I’ve always found folding an omelette one of the dish’s hardest steps.
Luckily, The London Chef has shared some tips taught to him by a “two-Michelin-starred chef.”
He takes a spatula and runs it around the edges of a just-set omelette, having finished cooking it with the residual heat in the pan rather than on an open flame.
After the edges are loosened, he lets the omelette sit for 30 seconds longer.
Then, “tilting the pan towards yourself using gravity to help you, we’re going to fold in one side of the omelette, and then we’re going to fold in the other side to create a V-shape.”
He then flips the tip of the V over and rolls up the rest of the omelette before nudging the folded eggs to the edge of the pan “to help us create that half-moon shape.”
Once that’s done, the chef whacks the omelette in the oven for another 30 seconds to seal the edges and solidify the centre a little (I’m stealing that...).