My Mom taught be how to make a proper French omelet. Yesterday I acquired 2 dozen yard eggs from my neighbor, Amber, She sells the for $4.00, but I always pay $5.00. I sold eggs to our neighbors in Houston for $0.50 per dozen in 1965. Adjusting for inflation that is about $10.00.
Anyway they are wonderful full flavor tasty eggs with deep colored yokes.
So I got out Mom’s perfectly seasoned cast iron omelet pan, let 3 med/lg eggs warm to room temperature and made an extra sharp NY cheddar and onion omelet that had some lovely browning, no scorching. It slid right out of the pan onto a warm plate. Mom would’ve been proud.
The wince was the single serving of hot buttered and black peppered grits on the side (20g carbs). She was a Fredrick, MD girl and could not understand eating grits, cream of wheat and oatmeal were her hot cereals.
The last time I made an omelet a couple of months ago, it was with store bought eggs. It was less then perfect. Part of my growing up was on my family’s farm that had beef cattle, farrow to finish hogs and as many as 50,000 chickens. We gathered eggs by hand, cleaned, graded and packed them. I became quite familiar what a really good egg looks, smells and tastes like.
Technique stuff - I add a little bit of milk to the eggs to make it more fluffy. Not too much. I pour it into the pan and use low heat and occasionally scrape the egg so that the uncooked portion of egg on top will make contact with the metal.
Meanwhile, I am cooking the onions, peppers, and ham in a different pan.
Once the eggs are firm enough, I flip the whole thing over like a pancake. I put the cheese on it. I do that right away, when it’s still very hot, so it melts. And then I immediately put the hot onions, peppers, and ham on top of the cheese. That way the cheese is layered between the hot eggs and the hot onions, peppers, and ham. And it melts really well.
I pepper and salt the inside. After a few minutes cooking on that side, I fold it.
Mom only added a bit of water no milk. Butter in the pan at fairly high heat. The egg are beaten with a spoon of whisk never a fork, not sure why but don’t mess with success.
With the butter foaming but not smoking pour in the eggs. They will begin to set on the bottom. Take a fork and gently move the set edges towards the center while tilting the pan to allow liquid egg to go to the edges and cook.
At this time a bit of salt and pepper plus whatever the filling will be on 1 half.fold over like a taco slide in a warmed plate and bon appétit!
I irc she thought the addition of milk or cream made them heavier.
Both versions sound great! I tend to like the egg smoothed out thin, then the ham, cheese, onion, etc. added; then fold it over as many times as it takes so that the additional ingredients and egg layers are visible when its cut up with fork/knife. And don’t mash the added ingredients in the middle, spread them out so you get a bit of each in every bite! I don’t care for browned eggs on the outside, let alone crispy, but well set and cooked without any “runny” egg. Must say eggs make up my breakfast about half the time and I’m still learning how to cook them at home…my manual dexterity has resulted in broken up omelats more than once! Recent price increases give me pause, but not sure what to replace eggs with!
My neighbor’s hens are fairly young so the eggs are medium to maybe large. This morning no omelette but another 3 sunny side up basted with hot avocado oil. Yum!
I haven’t checked the price of Haas avocado from Mexico but the blueberries I’ve been buying for over a year went up 20%. These are from Mexico.
This brings up how I came to hate the smell and taste of eggs from 15 to 20…
Before that I was living right where I am now on what was a multi livestock farm. We had about 100 head of mama cows with 2 bulls to service them, About 50 sows with boars to service them and about 30,000 + sq feet in 9 chicken houses for free house layers.
This was a farily stable economic plan, even if it didn’t make a huge amount of money. Calf sails were once per year, pigs about every 3-4 months and eggs were monthy, by that I mean the checks. The eggs were picked up much sooner that that.
The farm was sort of a Gestalt, the whole is greater than the parts. When wwe cleaned the chicken houses the manure pack was spread on the pastures. We were the only people at that time that did not need to supplement our cattle with feed or hay. My uncle liked to lure them out of the woods with a few cattle cubes so he could see them. He loved his cows. Any wastage from the layiing operation when to the hogs - no waste
We started our own company to distribute eggs locally and into Houston. That’s when I moved to Houston off the farm. I did not eat an egg for 4 years unless itt was in cake. I would eat peanut butter on toast and OJ for breakfast. Then at a ffrinds house his mother made what she called toad in the hole, Not the UK version which is sort of llke pigs in a blanket. She’d butter an slice of bread on bothe sides like for grilled cheese, take a biscuit cutter cutting a hole in it. The bread went into the griddle and she dropped an egg in the hole.flipping it over easy. This was so good that I began to eat eggs again. Good thing because they were the mainstay of breakfast when in USAF basic and beyond.
In 1961 or 2 for 3 weeks the wholesale price of eggs fell to $0.25 per dozen. This wwa exact cost. It paid the labor, electricity and other overhead. For 3 weeks we ate mostly eggs, because we had plenty.
The other thing was working in the egg room where we candled, cleaned and graded by weight the eggs using machines. On the floor where the eggs were fed in to candle and clean was a #2 washtub for badly cracked eggs.
We would drop those in the tub that was literally at our feet. So on the weekends, school holidays and summer vacation I was there in tthe egg room smelling raw eggs for hours. Not rotten mind you, just raw fresh eggs. BTW those eggs were a special treat for the hogs.
So interesting, @CarlosLuis! I love the Gestalt method with no waste! Sounds like a wonderful childhood! I also grew up on a family farm and miss the country side very much. Hard to believe a dozen of eggs were $0.25 a dozen whole sale at one time! I understand your distaste for eggs though (for those few years). I had a similar experience once as a young child when I was give a sunny side egg for breakfast that appeared (to me) to be almost a young chick yet to hatch. I stopped eating eggs after that experience!! When I think back now, my reaction may have been due to my imagination as I had been helping to handle the egg incubators.
That made me chuckle. The eggs from Amber are likely fertile as there’s a proud Rhode Island Red guy running with the hens. But her children are diligent about collecting the eggs before any broody hen tries to set and hatch them.
Agriculture has changed drastically since then. My uncle would buy eggs from quite a few smaller producers with 1,000 to 2,000 layers. Not enough to be able to process and distribute. All gone now, there’s one company left in the region with a million or 2 layers in inhumane cages.
There are some who raise meat chickens for Sandesons. The land owners have 100% liability and if Sanderson drops them all is lost. Hog raising is the same but no market here anymore.
All of the small dairies here have gone. That’s all moved west in huge dairies where the cows are number on a spreadsheet. Some as many as 5,000 units (cows).
In my opinion having so many chickens and dairy cows in on location is a recipe for disease to run rampant. We see that with bird flu. One chicken test positive and thousands if not millions are destroyed.
Sorry for the rant. It’s just the way things are here.
Haha, yes, I’m sure that would have been the case w/ our flock on the farm, too. They were all free-range, hens and roosters, so who knows what they got into being free!
I whole-heartedly agree with you regarding today’s agriculture practices. Caging creatures is not humane. It is heart breaking and as you say, and I agree, a recipe for disease to run rampant. Yes, it may be more efficient but who is profiting? The cost of food has drastically increased with these “efficient” farm factories. Meanwhile, there’s been a drastic reduction in family farms, and an increase in lost of farm land.
That’s my rant. I’m in no position to change things so I can only express dismay!
