Omelette Soufflée for the Proletariat

Would messieurs-dames care for a sodden egg?

There are a thousand reasons why I am not a chef—the talent, the work ethic, the hygiene—but perhaps the most disqualifying is that I do not like Wet Egg.

Chefs love Wet Egg. For years, I struggled with scrambled eggs because I kept following the recipes of famous men with branded cookware who insisted I use a double boiler and coddle the eggs like an Eton schoolboy. Inevitably, I would prod the eggs for ages over a slow, stuttering flame and wind up with something the consistency of a boiled paper towel.

I came to terms with my egg wrongthink when I saw respected national food critic Robert Sietsema post this picture of his (apparently enviable) lunch at the award-winning restaurant Frenchette.

Robert Sietsema @robertsietsema

Blood sausage and soft scrambled eggs, Frenchette

I’m sure it was delicious, but come on. Look at that shit, blooming on the plate like some sort of lichen. Look at that egg in egg jus.

I am strong enough now to admit that I like my scrambled eggs to be sturdy enough to fold like a towel—less Frenchette, more McGriddle. But I’m still not great at making them, because scrambled eggs are not actually that easy. There’s a reason they’re mentioned by name in the theme tune to Frasier (there’s a guy who definitely likes Wet Egg).

What I am great at making is omelette soufflée, which TV jokes had convinced me was a fussy, impossible thing. How does that make any sense?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about which foods and techniques we code as highfalutin’ versus workaday, in part because Food Twitter spent much of the past week arguing about whether cast-iron pans are “bougie.” Truly, we are in a golden age of the Discourse when I can’t keep up with which cookware is the tool of the oppressor (“fellas, is it classist to heat a big piece of forged iron?”)

All of this is just to say: I reject the idea that scrambled eggs are basic, everyman fare, and I think we need to reclaim luxury egg for the working stiff.

Here’s my pitch: I think you should make omelette soufflée, and I think you should make it for breakfast today. It doesn’t require much intuition or artistry; all you need is three eggs and the ability to follow instructions. The recipe I’m going to walk you through is foolproof. I know this because I have made it, and I am a fool.

Your reward will be a luxurious breakfast for one—a fluffy-puffy omelette tall and substantial enough to appease a tyrannical boy-king. It will have the appearance of a thick skin but an impossibly soft, fragile interior. Still definitely just talking about the omelette here.

Something something OnlyFans.

A quick note: I’m side-stepping the cast iron debate entirely and insisting you use a bog-standard nonstick pan—the kind with the Teflon coating full of ~cHeMiCaLs~ that will give your pet snake a post-natal birth defect.

Another quick note: you can use whatever sharp-flavored meats, veggies, and cheeses you like and have on hand for the filling, but I’m including my favorite version below. Choosing stronger flavors will allow you to use less of…whatever and avoid weighing down the omelette too much.

The Haterade Omelette Soufflée Experience

For the filling:

2 anchovies straight from the tin, minced
1-2 tablespoons minced red bell pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
½ tablespoon capers, drained*
Red pepper flakes
Dried oregano
L’il glug olive oil (maybe half a tablespoon; you don’t need to measure this)
¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan (or similar hard, world-weary cheese)

*This is a staunchly pro-caper newsletter. If you tend to find dishes too salty, you can use fewer capers or rinse them first.

Pour a li’l glug of olive oil into a large, nonstick skillet over medium heat (you’ll use it for the omelette in a bit; no sense dirtying two pans). Add anchovies, red bell pepper, garlic, and red pepper flakes to taste and sauté for a couple minutes until your kitchen smells delicious. Add a few shakes of oregano and sauté ~30 seconds more. Turn off the heat, scrape everything into a bowl, and add the capers. Keep the grated cheese separate, but close at hand. Wipe out the nonstick pan. You’re ready to make an omelette.

For the omelette:

3 eggs, yolks and whites separated
1 tablespoon butter

1. Separate the eggs

As you crack the eggs, tip the whites into one bowl and the yolks into another. Try as hard as you can to get a perfectly clean separation of yolk and white—even just a little strand of yellow hanging out in the bowl of whites will prevent the egg white foam from getting as tall and luxurious as you deserve. Salt and pepper the bowl with the yolks and give it a quick whisk with a fork. Don’t add anything to the egg whites. The whites cannot abide seasoning. *looks directly into camera*

2. Beat the egg whites to “stiff peaks”

Choose your own adventure based on your setup:

If you have a stand mixer…

Well, la-dee-dah. Honored you’re reading the newsletter, Ambassador. Like everything else in your life, this is going to be a piece of cake: dump the egg whites in the mixer bowl, strap on that whisk attachment, and switch ‘er to high. It’ll probably take less than two minutes for the egg whites to get to “stiff peaks” (scroll down for visual cues), so don’t wander off to lecture your butler about the mysterious stain on the settee.

If you have an electric hand mixer…

A whisk attachment will make short work of this, but the standard dual beaters work fine, too. It’ll probably take you at least three minutes to get to where you’re going; start checking after two.

If all you have is a whisk (or a fork)…

I promise you can still do this. Cooks have been making meringues and soufflés since about 1650, and none of them had KitchenAids. What they did have is sore wrists (and scurvy, probably).

I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you: getting your egg whites to stiff peaks is going to take a while, your arms are going to scream at you, and you’re going to want to fight me. Good. Use that righteous fury to fuel your whisking. You’re going to need beefy arms if you wish to destroy me in single-hand combat. My body type is “Husky Golem.” You want me on that wall, you need me on that wall.

When I tested this with a big ol’ balloon whisk, it took me a little under five minutes to get to stiff peaks, with lots of swearing and arm-switching happening along the way. If you have a smaller French whisk or even a fork, you can use that, too, just know it might take a little bit longer.

Harold McGee claims in On Food and Cooking that using a copper bowl will cut down on your whisking time, but I’m not sure this tip is particularly helpful, as I suspect the center of the Venn Diagram of “people who own a copper mixing bowl” and “people who don’t own an electric mixer” is filled exclusively with 500-year-old Italian vampires. McGee does title one of the sections of his egg chapter “Stress Builds Protein Solidarity,” though, to which I say: I feel you, comrade.

Anyway, visual cues are your friend here—once things are looking nice and thick and glossy, turn the whisk upside down. If the whites droop or curl over on themselves like little waves, you’re not there yet—but you’re close.

Whisk another minute and check again. Don’t give up—it’ll get there, and it’ll be worth it.

About perfect here:

3. Fold the yolks into the fluffy egg white mixture

The goal from here on out is to keep as much air in the mixture as possible. Grab a small rubber spatula or spoon, and gently—geeeeently—fold the egg yolks into the bowl of whites. No vigorous stirring allowed here; you want to combine the two into a homogenous, pale-yellow mixture with as few strokes as possible to avoid deflating that hard-won foam. If you’ve got the big, meaty paws of a bargeworker, dial them to the “caressing your old lady” setting.

4. Tip that pillow-y egg mess into a pan

Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add a full tablespoon of butter (don’t skimp) and wait for the foaming to mostly subside. Then, dump the omelette mixture into the pan and geeeeeeently spread it out to the edges of the pan using your spatula. It’s going to be thicc, and you want to keep it that way. The wrist action here is not unlike crumb-coating a cake.

Cover the pan and cook for 3 to 4 minutes over medium heat until the top of the omelette is just starting to set and you can loosen the edges with a rubber spatula without them tearing. Sprinkle the filling over one half of the omelette only, then put the lid back on the pan and cook for another minute.

5. Fold and plate

This is the only step that requires finesse, and even if you mess it up, it’s not going to be a disaster. When your omelette’s ready, loosen it from the pan all over with your spatula, then use that spatula to fold the un-cheesed half onto the cheesed half like a book. Don’t hesitate. Don’t equivocate. Try to do this in one swift motion. If you fold too slowly or haltingly, the omelette will break at the crease instead of bend. It will be just as delicious, but it won’t look as good.

Gently hold the fold in place with your spatula for a few seconds while it adheres. Then, turn off the heat.

Let the omelette sit in the pan for another minute for the innards to finish cooking. Slide a large, upside-down plate on top of the pan and invert the pan to plate.

Top with minced chives or anything sufficiently green to look intentional. I don’t believe in parsley, but I respect other peoples’ religious traditions. Pour your breakfast beer into a fancy goblet. Eat like a working-class revolutionary who just murdered the king.