I don't know about you, but I just love omelets. Whether at home or in a restaurant, an omelet is my favorite meal.
There are some things that bug me when I cook my own omelets, however:
(1) My favorite frying pan has a 10 inch diameter bottom, and cooking an omelet in this large pan requires three or four eggs and a lot of filling--more than I want for one meal.
(2) When you fold over two sides of a round omelet base, the filling is exposed at both ends.
(3) If you are not very careful with cooking time, the omelet base becomes leathery.
(4) When you fold up the sides of a large omelet, they tend to spring open again--very frustrating.
I think I have finally solved these problems. If you would like to copy, here is what I did:
First, I partitioned my big frying pan to reduce the bottom area.
Silicone rubber worked well for this. It is flexible, non-stick, resists high temperature and is quite inert, so it won't contaminate your food.
Silicone rubber is available in tubes at your auto parts store. Be sure to select the red color. This is the high temp variety. My tube says it is good up to 650 F.
To cast the silicone rubber into the shape I wanted, I made a simple paper mold. A piece of typing paper was taped to a flat board and a 6 x 9 inch rectangle was drawn on the paper. Diagonal lines connecting the corners gave the center of the rectangle where the lines crossed.
From the center, circular arks were drawn at both ends of the 9 inch dimension to accommodate the curvature of the pan. This defines the inside dimensions of the partition. If you have a rectangular griddle, forget the arks and leave the ends square.
Finally, lines 3/8 inches out were drawn all around.
Strips of paper 1/4 inch wide were cut with a paper cutter and fastened vertically with hot melt all around the inside and outside of the drawing. First tack the strips every inch or so, then fill in after these tacks have set.
Now you have a 3/8 inch wide channel by 1/4 inch high. Fill this with the rubber and let it cure for 24 hours.
When it cures, most of the paper mold will just strip off. Any paper that won't come off can be removed by soaking the rubber part in water for a few hours until the paper disintegrates.
Make sure the rubber picks up the flat bottom surface of the paper mold by using a 3/8 wide tool to force the rubber downward into the mold as you squeeze it out of the tube. Otherwise, it may cure with air pockets where you want the rubber to fit flat to the frying pan bottom. A screw driver works well for this. Never mind that the top surface of the rubber will be rough and uneven.
To use your finished rubber partition, pre-heat the pan first, then position the partition in the pan and fill it with the egg mixture. When the egg mixture has set, the rubber will easily pull away from the sides of the omelet base.
Two eggs and two tablespoons of water, well beaten, fill my rubber partition just about right. This solves the first problem I listed above.
It also solves the second problem, because the straight sides of the omelet fold up to cover the filling completely.
The third problem is solved by adding a teaspoon of baking powder to the egg mixture. This makes the egg base light and fluffy and puffs it up to 1/4 inch thick or more. This also works great for scrambled eggs. Every good cook may already know this, or it may have been a flash of genius on my part. In any case, it really works. Try it. You'll like it!
One problem, though: The added thickness makes it difficult to cook the egg all the way through. You can solve this by making a large turn-over tool and cooking the omelet base from both sides.
A cookie sheet from the dollar store provides a good source of sheet metal for this. Cut a 9 x 6 3/4 inch rectangle from the bottom and bend up 1/4 inch sides along the 9 inch dimension. These sides prevent the omelet base from slipping off while turning it.
A pair of vice pliers work well as a handle, but you can probably find another tool at the dollar store with a handle that can be removed from the tool and attached to the turner with pop rivets, bolts or picture wire.
You will need a standard pancake turner to lift the omelet base slightly in order to get the large turner under it.
The fourth problem above is easily solved with cheese. Instead of mixing cheese with the other ingredients you use as a filling for the omelet, sprinkle grated cheese over the flaps you are going to turn up. When it melts, it works as a glue to hold the flaps in place.
If you love to cook, you will want to visit this web site: http://recipesunlimited.info
Here you will find tons of recipes you can download with new ones every month..
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