4 Levels of Omelets - Amateur to Food Scientist _ Epicurious

Hi , I'm Emily and I'm a level one chef .

Hi , I'm Lorenzo and I'm a level two chef .

Hi , I'm Barb and I'm a level three chef .

It's been a while since I made an omelet because usually I just give in and make scrambled eggs with stuff in them .

The recipe comes from many , many brunches that I've gone to .

I'm going to be making a French omelet with a wild mushroom and goat cheese filling and fresh herbs .

The fillings going into my omelet are precooked hams stick and some green bell pepper .

When I'm figuring out the amount of filling I should use .

I just kind of eyeball it and that's kind of gonna be it .

So that's the first thing I'm gonna do is actually gonna start cooking the bacon .

The vegetables I'm using today are red bell pepper , Spanish onion , green scallions , white button mushrooms and softened goat cheese with the mushrooms .

We're going to toss them with olive oil , salt and pepper .

All right .

So these are going to be roasted .

I might as well do my decor , I'm only gonna use a green portion .

We're gonna use Italian parsley chives and Cher and there's our fresh herb mix .

Let's start saut my vegetables .

I'm gonna add a little bit of red pepper flakes cause I like it a little spicy .

I'm not cooking this all the way down .

I just wanted a little bit of the raw bite off .

The mushrooms have come out of the oven .

We're going to roughly chop them .

We're going to add our mushrooms in just a little bit of black pepper .

So as this is going , I'll add a little bit of salt .

All right .

So we have sauteed the vegetables .

So I'm putting the filling into a piping bag so that it's gonna be easy to fill our omelet .

All right , we're going to now make the egg mixture .

So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna crack some eggs into this bowl , two eggs and then I'm just gonna mix some other stuff into it .

So , first I've got egg number one , egg , number two , didn't get any shell in there this time .

So , pretty much professional .

I actually crack the eggs in a separate bowl just to make sure I don't have any shells at the bottom of the bowl from here .

I slowly pour it into my actual whiskey bowl .

We're gonna start with three eggs for the omelet .

Crack the eggs away from the bowl that we're going to be mixing them in so that we don't chip the shell and get it into our egg mixture .

And I always use two ha hands to separate the eggs .

I'm gonna be whisking these eggs , but it needs salt .

The salt actually helps break down proteins in the eggs .

So you're gonna have a fluffier omelet .

What I'm gonna do next is mix in a little bit of water .

So , what I'm doing here is I'm just , uh , whisking it with a fork .

I use a fork .

But of course , if you have a handy dandy whisk go for it .

So I tend to whisk up and over in a circular motion so that I catch of the eggs whisking side to side doesn't really do anything for you .

We wanna whisk vigorously because we wanna make sure that the whites and the yolks are completely homogenized .

So we don't end up with big white squatch in our omelet .

I like a little texture in there , you know , like some bits more yolk , some more egg white .

I just want to get some air into the egg mixture and kind of incorporate all the salt that I put in there .

So seasoning wise , I pretty much just eyeball it .

Yeah , that's a fine amount of pepper .

So I'm just gonna put , uh , just a pinch of salt in .

We're gonna add in a generous pinch of our fresh herbs and just mix them in just before we start to cook right now .

I'm actually going to start heating up my pan .

I'm gonna put this over medium heat .

We're gonna use two teaspoons of whole butter .

This is gonna add some flavor to our omelet and help the omelet not stick .

It's a pretty fast process and swim .

Don't burn .

As soon as the eggs go in the pan , we start to stir and I'm making little circles around into a big circle .

I move it around a little bit .

You can see as I'm doing that , it's starting to wrinkle a little bit .

That means it's cooking .

And the reason I'm doing this is because I want the eggs to cook evenly .

If I let them sit , the eggs that are touching the bottom of the pan are gonna cook more than the ones on top .

Even though this is thin , I just gonna give it like one more second .

Obviously , this is an exact science .

I personally like it loose like that .

It's still a little runny .

So I'm gonna cook the eggs till they're about 85% done .

I'm gonna cut off my heat and then I'm gonna spread this back out .

I'm gonna toss some fillings in here now .

So I'm just gonna put my ham and my peppers on one side of it .

Let's start with my cheese .

This is freshly grated cheddar cheese and I put it right back in the middle and then , and you take your veggies , you do the same thing in the middle .

Oh , my goodness .

That looks good already .

Then what I'm gonna do is take my filling and add a nice generous amount in the center .

And then I'm just going to take this side right and then just put a quick , but I'm gonna fold the omelet one third of the way , slide it towards the end of my pan .

Now I'm just gonna roll it onto a plate , lift up and roll and then roll kind of a plop .

Uh So I like to put hot sauce on my omelet .

I still have a little topping to go with my fresh scallions cause I love the bite of that oniony flavor of a scallion .

And then don't forget the bacon folks .

I like tearing and placing the bacon on top and then we're gonna take a nice generous pinch and just garnish our omelets at the end .

Alright .

So this is our omelet and I think it looks pretty good .

It looks actually really delicious .

So I'm really happy with how this turned out .

I can't wait till they get still really nice and moist .

Mm That's a good omelet .

The vegetables with the sharp sharp cheddar cheese .

It's so good together .

I get a little bit of tanginess from the goat cheese .

A really nice roasty flavor .

It's great .

I told you I could make an omelet .

We saw three different chefs make three different omelets , each with their own filling cooking method and toppings .

Let's start with the filling .

Emily used raw bell peppers in her omelet .

Lorenzo sauted his vegetables and barb used roasted mushrooms what Barb and Lorenzo did was remove some of that moisture from the vegetables so that the filling isn't too moist .

When we have a really moist filling in our omelet , we can see a process called SSIs or weeping when the eggs weep liquid out and create something a little bit more soggy as opposed to light and fluffy .

Lorenzo and Barb both filled their omelets with cheese .

Lorenzo chose cheddar cheese , which is a low moisture cheese .

I just like the sharpness of cheddar cheese and Barb chose goat cheese which is a high moisture cheese .

The goat cheese helps bind our mushrooms together .

High moisture cheeses is like goat cheese melt at the same temperature .

Our eggs will coagulate at whereas our low moisture cheeses like our cheddar cheese melt at a higher temperature than we need to cook our eggs .

So they might not completely be melted when we go to roll or fold our omelet .

Next , our chefs blended their eggs .

Eggs are composed of two different parts , our egg white , which is mostly protein and water and that cooks at a lower temperature around 100 and 40 F in our egg yolk , which is mostly lipids with a little bit of protein and carbohydrates .

And that starts to cook at a higher temperature around 100 and 49 F blend .

Those two homogeneously will ensure that we have an even cook in our omelet .

Emily and Lorenzo used a fork to blend their eggs and barb used a whisk .

Either of these are good options to create a homogenous mixture .

But when using a whisk , be sure not to over aerate your eggs , we can over beat the eggs and produce a foamy mixture that won't cook at the same rate as the rest of our eggs .

All of our chefs added salt to their egg mixture .

Before transferring that to the heat , the salt will help to dissolve all of the proteins in the egg mixture , which will create a fluffy final product .

Emily added water into her egg mixture .

That's what I was taught to do .

So that's how some people think that you have have to add liquid into your egg mixture .

But this isn't necessary .

Adding a liquid like water is gonna increase the temperature that we have to cook or coagulate our eggs .

If you are choosing to add a liquid into your egg mixture , choose heavy cream or whole milk to add an extra rich flavor to your eggs .

Emily used a moderate heat when cooking her omelet .

Lorenzo cooked his omelet at a low temperature and Barb chose a higher temperature to cook her omelet when using a low or moderate temperature like Lorenzo and Emily did it's OK to spread your omelet throughout the whole pan to ensure even cooking within the omelet when choosing a higher temperature , move your eggs around just like Barb did so that we're not over exposing our eggs to heat .

And we have an even cooking without damaging or toughening the protein in our eggs .

Like I'm frosting a cake .

So it's nice .

And even when we heat eggs , we see two different protein reactions .

The first protein reaction is called protein denaturation .

When we uncoil or unravel the egg proteins , next , the proteins coagulate or aggregate into something we call a curd .

This is the main protein reaction .

We see when we're cooking an omelet .

Today , we saw our chefs make two styles of omelets .

The French style omelet in the diner style omelet .

Emily made a diner style omelet where she brown the bottom of her omelet .

She created a light and fluffy texture and folded it in half .

Barb created a French style omelet with no browning on the bottom .

She left it a pale yellow color with a tender inside .

Lorenzo created something kind of in between the two .

It is though it really is .

He created a tender filling and brown the outside to create a crust and then fold it in half that the French style omelet leaves moisture on the top of the eggs giving them plasticity so that we can roll it into a cigar style shape .

The diner style omelet is cooked longer as evidenced by the browning on the bottom of Lorenzo and Emily's omelet , cooking our eggs longer draws out more moisture and we don't have the plasticity that we need to roll it into that cigar style shape .

That's why it's better to fold our diner style omelet .

Everybody has their favorite way to top an omelet .

Emily chose hot sauce , which is gonna help to balance the salty flavor from the ham .

In her omelet , Lorenzo chose bacon , which is going to give a nice crunch and texture to his omelet while also providing a deep flavor .

She doesn't like bacon .

Barb added herbs to her omelet , which is going to give an earthiness and a freshness to her final product .

This is one of my favorite things to make for dinner .

Hopefully , you can incorporate some of these elements and techniques into your own recipe .