Plain Omelet.
The fire should be quite hot. All cookery-books especially expatiate on the necessity of a pan to be used for omelets alone. Any clean, smooth iron spider, or sauté pan, is a good enough omelet-pan. Put the pan on the fire to become heated; break the eggs into a kitchen basin; sprinkle over them pepper and salt, and give them twelve vigorous beats with a spoon. This is enough to break all the yolks, and twelve beats was Mr. Riddle’s rule. Now put butter the size of an egg (for five eggs) in the heated pan; turn it around so that it will moisten all the bottom of the pan. When it is well melted, and begins to boil, pour in the eggs. Holding the handle of the omelet-pan in the left hand, carefully and lightly with a spoon draw up the whitened egg from the bottom, so that all the eggs may be equally cooked, or whitened to a soft, creamy substance. Now, still with the left hand, shake the pan forward and backward, which will disengage the eggs from the bottom; then shaking again the omelet a little one side, turn with a spoon half of one side over the other; and allowing it to remain a moment to harden a little at the bottom, gently shaking it all the time, toss it over on to a warm platter held in the right hand. A little practice makes one quite dexterous in placing the omelet in the centre of the platter, and turning it over as it is tossed from the omelet-pan.
However, if one is unsuccessful in the tossing operation, which is the correct thing, according to the cooking professor, the omelet can be lifted to the platter with a pancake-turner. It should be creamy and light in the centre, and more firm on the outside.
I will specify several different omelets. A variety of others may be made in the same way, by adding boiled tongue cut into dice, sliced truffles, cooked and sliced kidneys with the gravy poured around, etc., etc.