There are very similar egg dishes that many USA cooks confuse, but they are different enough to be called by their proper name. Let us get into the details of all of them, and how to cook them correctly. I can hear my spouse now, “that’s arrogant, you never cook anything per recipe, or correctly!” My response “yea, I know”.
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The French Omelette
The word omelette was created by the French, but the food itself had been available for quite a while with its roots in Persian lands to Rome. But there are different types of omelettes; for instance, a USA person landing in France and ordering an omelette would think the dish was unusual looking and very undercooked, even runny and perhaps not cooked well.
That is because Europeans prefer an unblemished yellowy, tightly rolled, soft interior dish, with a light filling, if anything is added. The slightly harder exterior leads into an interior custard of softly cooked eggs. Whereas, the USA version tends to be cooked more, some even turning slightly brown on the exterior, are often larger in size, and filled with more stuff. The French version is a delicate custard, while the USA version a vehicle for lots of filling.
French Omelette
Chef John says that making a French Omelette is 10% ingredients and 90% technique. It takes practice to make the smooth, unblemished exterior with a creamy, custardy interior.
- Tools
- Bowl
- Whisk
- 8” non-stick pan
- Plastic or wooden fork (causes least damage to pan)
- Ingredients
- 3 large eggs
- Kosher salt and freshly ground white pepper
- 1T (15g) unsalted butter
In a bowl, add 3 large eggs, and whisk until foamy. Add in salt and pepper, and whisk again for a handful of seconds. Use white pepper if you do not want black flecks visible in your omelette, if you do not mind, feel free to use black pepper.
In a pre-warmed, 8” non-stick pan add 1T butter to melt on low heat. As the butter turns foamy, but not brown, add the eggs and stir with a fork (be sure the tines are up, away from the pan). Shake the pan and stir the eggs to thoroughly break up the egg curds. As soon as the egg mixture is a soft scramble and creamy, stop mixing and shaking.
Using the fork, mash the eggs down a bit to have a single even layer of eggs in the pan. Let the scramble sit on the heat for a few minutes. Add any additional ingredients to the mixture to cook.
- Tablespoon of chives, or parsley, or cilantro
- Tablespoon of specialty cheese
Then, again using the fork, flip over a bit of the side to essentially roll the egg mixture up. Tilting the pan toward a plate and starting the rolling on the top will help, for the technique is to roll the omelette from the pan right onto the plate.
If it does not form right, use a clean kitchen towel to press it into the log or cigar shape on the plate, and make sure the plate has no oil spots. If you want you can decorate the plate with fresh green herbs.
American (USA) Omelette
In the USA omelettes are often defined by the number of eggs and the type of filling. They are usually folded in half instead of rolled.
- Tools
- Bowl
- Whisk
- 8” non-stick pan
- Spatula (my mom called this tool the ”pancake flip-over”)
- Ingredients
- 3 large eggs
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 2T (30g) oil
- All the veggies, meat, or cheese you can use to fill the omelette.
In a bowl, whisk 3 eggs until they are foamy, add salt and pepper and mix again so the seasoning is fully integrated. Then heat your skillet on medium heat, add oil and once the oil is hot enough pour the egg into the skillet. Pick up and rotate the egg mixture so the whole of the bottom of the skillet is coated with egg and let it cook for a bit. Then add your pre-cooked ingredients.
- Denver: diced cooked ham, onions, green pepper
- TexMex: beans, cooked ground beef, cheddar, chilies, and topped with hot sauce
- Herb: parsley, cilantro, garlic chives
- Breakfast: precooked potatoes, cheddar cheese, cooked bacon bits
- Greek: spinach, olives, feta, tomatoes, and onions
- etc.
Once everything is added to the omelette (on one side) and smoothed out, flip the omelette in half, making a half moon shape, and let stand for a bit before moving it onto a plate. Top the omelette with appropriate toppings of herb, cheese, or sauce and serve.
The French Quiche
Traditionally, this dish is considered a French egg tart (or pie). ImporticosBakery writes that although quiche is known as a dish of classic French cuisine, historical records indicate that quiche actually originated in Germany in the middle ages in the medieval kingdom of Lothringen, which the French later occupied and renamed Lorraine. The word ‘quiche’ is derived from the German ‘Kuchen’, meaning cake.
It is made by first making a pastry crust, then filling it with savory whisked eggs and pieces of cheese, meat, seafood or vegetables. Quiche may be served hot, warm or cold. The key to a good quiche is that the filling be creamy and the crust must not be soggy.
- Tools
- Bowl
- Whisk, mixer, or food processor
- 9” pie pan (or cast iron skillet)
- Spatula (my mom called this tool the ”pancake flip-over”)
- Parchment paper
- Grater or knife to prep fillings
- Skillet
- Crust
- 1.25C pastry flour (if using AP flour add 3/8t baking powder)
- 1/2t salt
- 1 stick butter cut into 12 slices
- 3-4T ice water
- Custard
- 4 large eggs
- 1C heavy cream
- 1C whole milk
- 3/4t kosher salt
- 1/4t black pepper
- Filling
- Cheese, veggies, herbs, meats
- Oil to cook the filling
Make the crust first by adding the flour, baking powder, and salt into a food processor or mixer (with whisk attachment) and pulse until very well mixed. Then use the dough attachment and add the cut up butter, again pulsing until the batter looks like coarse sand or a bowl of peas. Then continue to pulse while adding water, just until the dough releases from the sides and pulls itself together.
I am not a baker, but the best pie crust I have made, at this stage was not fully together like a pizza dough. It was sort of crumbly. So place the dough and crumbly pieces on some parchment paper, use the paper to form a ball, flatten the ball slightly with your hand, and wrap it in plastic to keep the shape while resting it in the fridge for ~30min.
Then take the dough and roll out into a 12” circle. Place into a room temperature pie pan and smooth the dough. Crimp the edges with your hands and then into the fridge for another ~30 minutes.
Heat the oven to 375F. Place some parchment over the the chilled crust in a formed fashion and add some ceramic pie weights (or dried beans or raw rice) to weigh down and form the pie, and bake on the middle rack for ~15 minutes. Then pull from the oven, remove the weights, pierce the bottom of the crust with a fork every inch or so. Bake uncovered for another ~10 minutes and remove. Reduce heat to 350F.
Now prep the custard: whisk or blend the eggs, milk, cream, salt and pepper. Then prep filling: grate cheese, chop herbs, cook veggies or meat; and be sure to sauté all the food so everything is cooked when served.
Fill the pie starting with some egg custard with cheese on the bottom, then some of the veggies, herbs, meat and a touch of cheese, pouring custard on top. Shake the pan to settle the ingredients and place in the 350F preheated oven and bake ~50 minutes. Let the dish cool for ~15 minutes before cutting.
American Changes
In the USA there are some changes to this French dish people often make. First they just go and buy a frozen quiche (Costco has large ones) and bypass all that work. Second, they buy the pie crust frozen and work from that. Third, they often use regular whole milk and not cream. The resulting egg liquid is not a custard, but more the runny consistency of whisked eggs. Fourth, they add a lot of cheese to the dish.
The Italian Frittata
Frittata is an Italian open-faced omelet that features a mixture of eggs and dairy, with other ingredients like veggies, cheese, meat, and herbs. It is a crustless quiche in that it can stand up on its own, without a piecrust to hold it in place. Actually, I accidentally made this one day at Kitchen on Fire when I intended to make an egg dish but made some mistakes that forced me to make the frittata as a recovery. My mistake was praised by the students who had never seen a frittata made before and called it a thick egg pizza.
There is a formula for a frittata: For every 6 eggs, use ¼C heavy cream, 2C filling (veggies and/or meat), and 1C cheese. This is the case even when making them in a skillet, baking dish, or muffin tin.
- Tools
- Bowl
- Whisk
- Non-stick, oven safe skillet (I use cast iron)
- Spatula
- Ingredients
- 6 large eggs1/4C heavy cream (or Half and Half)
- Kosher salt and freshly ground white or black pepper
- Fillings
- 4T olive oil
- 2C of sautéed shallot, leeks, small diced potatoes, bacon, and garlic
- 1C grated or crumbled cheese
First whisk your eggs, add salt and pepper, and mix until frothy. Then add cream and whisk again until the mix is thoroughly combined. Then, preheat the oven to 400F while preparing the filling.
- Note about oil: I say 4T oil, but really while I was cooking my frittata the Chef told me to add more, then more, then a bit more oil to the skillet. He said he uses lots of oil to keep the frittata separate from the pan and easy to independently swish the frittata about the skillet without sticking before it goes in the oven. Your call.
Heat and oil the skillet, then sauté your fillings directly in the pan. Once the filling is done enough, then sprinkle with cheese and immediately pour the egg mixture over the top. I shake the skillet a bit to get the egg mixture everywhere, and then leave it to cook on the stovetop over medium heat for ~5min. Keep an eye on the dish, for when it is about to set, but still loose, pop the whole skillet into the 400F oven for a few minutes to finish cooking and browning the top.
Italian Basilicata Rafanata
Wikipedia writes, rafanata is an egg-based dish from the Italian region of Basilicata. The name comes from rafano, the main ingredient of the dish, which means “horseradish” in Italian. It is a kind of baked frittata made with horseradish, potato and cheese; another type of rafanata includes sausage. The dish is named after rafano, which means horseradish in Italian.
I watched a lot of Italian cooking shows for this recipe. I learned the words formaggio (cheese), pecorino (pecorino cheese), uova (eggs), rafano (horseradish), patata (guess!), olio (oil), and sale (salt) as I watched these Italian women cook and talk about the food. There are variations with some of the cooks adding milk, some adding shredded pieces of bread, and one cooking it all on the stovetop. She fliped the rafanata using the old but true plate technique rather than a pan air flip.
- Equipment
- Knife
- Potato ricer
- Grater
- 1 large, medium and small bowls
- 9”-10” non-stick skillet with lid
- Ingredients
- 10-11oz peeled, boiled, mashed potatoes
- 8 eggs
- 3oz grated pecorino
- 1-1/2 oz grated horseradish (to be authentic, use fresh root)
- Kosher salt + grated pepper
- Olive oil
Boil peeled potatoes, when done drain, and using a ricer, mash the potatoes. Add salt and pepper and then use a fork to fluff them up for a nice, even mixture of seasoning. Before the next step, let the potatoes cool in the medium sized bowl. We want them to be slightly warm, or at room temperature, but not hot, as we do not want to cook the eggs we are about to add.
While potatoes are cooling, grate the cheese into a fine powder, and freshly grate the horseradish. (Fresh horseradish is very pungent, and it will make you cry and cause a runny nose if you are too close to the oils. Just great for clearing out the sinuses.) If you cannot find the brownish-tan root in your store, use jarred grated horseradish, not the creamy kind. It will not be quite the same, but you will get the idea. Oh, and might as well oil the oven-proof, non-stick skillet now too, be sure to get it on all sides, liberally.
Break the eggs, one at a time into a small bowl, then pour into the larger bowl; this technique is to help prevent any shell from getting into the eggs. Whisk the eggs into a froth. Then add in the cheese and whisk well. Add in the grated horseradish and whisk well. Now everything else comes together.
Add the mashed potato to the eggs. Add salt and pepper. Once well combined, scrape the batter from the bowl into the pre-oiled skillet with a spatula. Drizzle oil over the top, and cook on a stove top lidded for ~5 minutes to start the cooking process. Then place the un-lidded skillet into the oven under the broiler to continue cooking and browning the top.
The frittata will puff up, and fall once it is out of the oven. To tell if it is done insert a knife in the center and check the blade to make sure the egg mixture is cooked all the way through.
Spanish Tortilla
The Spanish tortilla is not like the Mexican one, in that it is not a flat bread but rather more like a frittata.
- Equipment
- Knife + Mandolin
- Bowls
- 9”-10” non-stick skillet with lid
- Fork to whisk
- Spatula
- Plate to assist turning the tortilla over
- Ingredients
- 3 or 4 medium potatoes thinly sliced
- 1 medium white onion thinly sliced
- 1C olive oil
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 6 whisked extra-large or jumbo eggs
Thinly slice the potatoes and onions using a mandolin. Heat the cup of oil in a 10” non-stick skillet over medium heat. I want the oil hot enough to slowly bubble when testing with a chopstick, but not fast fry. Once ready, add the potatoes and onions, along with salt and pepper, turning the veggies occasionally and gently so they start to cook on all sides. This is not a fast process, but more gentle; the aim is to cook the food, but not brown them. Once the potatoes are soft enough, remove the veggies from the skillet, reserving the oil, and place in a bowl to cool down. Turn the heat down to a medium low.
Whisk the eggs with salt and pepper, and pour into the potato bowl to combine. Then pour into the still warm, oiled skillet. I am looking for the edges to firm up, so cook for ~5 minutes, testing with my spatula. Now we want to insert a spatula all around the edges to assure it will be able to slip from the pan. The top will still be a bit runny. But we want to flip them onto a plate, then slide back into the skillet, adjusting as necessary with the spatula, so that the uncooked side gets heated as well. Cook again for ~5 minutes with the lid on. Now it is ready to eat.
For me, potatoes and onions just do not cut it, I want some color, so I also add some green, orange and red sweet peppers and sprinkle paprika on top.
So Let’s Conclude
Eggs are the 4th most purchased grocery items (1), right now they are very expensive, and some stores are even rationing how many dozens you can purchase. I suspect that this will continue to be the case for quite a while. Some even believe we will never return to pre-pandemic egg production or costs. But it may wax and wane with the weather and the paths of wild migratory birds who carry the virus to many places.
This avian flu is affecting Industrial Farming the hardest given how great numbers of chickens are forced into limited spaces, but even small family farms and backyard hen owners in some areas have been hit. The ERS wrote: As a result of recurrent outbreaks, U.S. egg inventories were 29 percent lower in the final week of December 2022 than at the beginning of the year. By the end of December, more than 43 million egg-laying hens were lost to the disease itself or to depopulation since the outbreak began in February 2022. [Depopulate = killed.]
But the surging egg prices are a much more complex story of:
- Continuing pandemic-era inflation
- Higher egg production costs (fuel, transportation, feed, and packaging)
- The devastating avian flu which CDC has been tracking daily, is today even higher than noted above with >58M birds killed, and counting.
- During Winter, i.e. less sunlight, pastured chickens produce less eggs. However, USDA reports <10% of eggs are produced in cage-free systems such as organic, pasture-raised, or indoor cage free systems, so this is a small part of the egg shortage.
- What I cannot tell is how much is due to outright corporate greed, aka price gouging (2)
I find the cost increases are a relative issue, as I had been paying more for pastured hen laying eggs in any case. But for others who habitually bought the cheaper and Industrialized Farmed $2.99 per dozen eggs, they are now shockingly almost double the cost in the national grocery stores.
And I have to admit, there really is no good replacement for eggs in their versatility, nutrition, and ease of use. I will, of course, pay more as required for this now limited food item, and will augment egg dishes with flax meal or chia seed replacements as much as possible. But for me, eggs are hard to replace.
—Patty
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