How to Cook the Perfect Restaurant-Style Omelette

American cheese omelette with CSA peppers onions and mushrooms.  Salad of black radish and onion. Pan-friend halluomi cheese.

I know, I know...you cook a great omelette.  It's easy.  You've been doing it since you were tall enough to reach the stove, and you don't need me to tell you how.  But think about the perfectly shaped, cheerfully yellow omelettes you get from your favorite brunch spot.  The eggs sublimely fluffy, the cheese gooey.  If you want to elevate your game to that level, read on my friends.

Long ago, when I first began working brunch service, my egg cookery was horrible.  It took months of broken yokes and burnt whites to get a handle on it, but eventually I worked my way to the chief brunch position: omelette station.  

At this restaurant it was a hideous beast of a station, the busiest and most challenging of them all. I'd seen omelette station humble cooks with twice my experience and laugh as it sent them home defeated and ashamed.  But I was eager to measure my skill against its imposing menace.  So, with grim resolve, I accepted its challenge.  It put up a good fight, omelette station did, but in the end I prevailed.   And after a few services, I had sous chefs asking me if I'd cooked omelettes somewhere before. I hadn't.  Turn's out I'm something of a natural.

At home, away from the pressures of cooking in a busy restaurant, omelettes are much easier.  Last weekend I cooked up a round filled with the frozen peppers, onions and mushrooms from our CSA.  We paired it with a salad of mixed greens, black radish and onions.  I also fried up some halloumi cheese I made last month. Go ahead, I dare you to find a better brunch anywhere.

1) Eggs + water + hot pan. 2) Pro-style flip and pro-style photography. 3) Slide it on a plate. 4) Add toppings and roll.

Directions for the perfect omelette:

• Cook your fillings ahead of time and reserve until the omelette is done.
• Crack two eggs into a bowl and whisk thoroughly, adding in 2 Tbs of water, milk or cream.  You always need to cut your beaten eggs with liquid; this is what makes the eggs fluff up as they cook. And the extra liquid will increase the omelette's pliability, making it easier to roll and fold.
• The next crucial thing home cooks neglect is starting with a hot pan.  Put your pan to medium flame before you even crack your first egg.  Use a generous amount of olive oil or clarified butter to lubricate the pan and give that time to get hot as well.  Pour in your eggs.  You should hear them sizzle the instant they hit the pan.  Those eggs need to start cooking the immediately or they will stick. 
• Season liberally with salt and pepper.  Eggs are super bland. They beg for seasoning to unlock their flavor.
• After about one minute, the eggs should set around the edges of the pan.  That's your cue to flip the omelette over.  Carefully use a spatula, or--if you're comfortable--flip it pro-style.  As soon as its flipped, cut the heat.  The other side of the omelette will cook instantly after it hits the hot steel.
• Throw down your cheese.  I love plain old deli-style American for eggs.  I've spent years developing my palate and trying all sorts of cheese but I maintain classic American is best for the perfect omelette.  The residual heat from the eggs is plenty to melt it.
• Carefully slide the omelette--more of an egg pancake at this point--on a plate. Pile your fillings onto the cheese, then carefully roll the omelette up.  Rolling it on the plate allows you to create a perfectly cylindrical, symmetrical omelette.

I read a quote somewhere: "A chef is only as good as his omelette."  I thought it was bullshit until I conquered the omelette station.  Omelettes are delicate and deceptively difficult to master.  They require speed, finesse and precision.  What you put in your omelette is irrelevant compared to the technique you use to cook it.