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Possible Duplicate:
How to succeed with making omelette

Omelets continue to elude me... It appears to be such a simple concept, but I always end up making scramble eggs with the mushrooms and cheese. Here's what I do

Mix egg and milk Pour into skillet on low-med heat, and it fills the entire bottom let it cook a little, then throw on the extras (mushroom, or meat and blackbean)

Then it goes awry... i see uncooked egg so I'm hesitant to fold it over, and if I leave it to cook i'm scared of burning the egg. I'll eventually fold it with runny egg, then i think to flip the whole thing to cook it some more and then i breaks apart. or i'll watch it then it gets really questionable in the area of over-cooked, so I mash it up into scrambled eggs..

What should I be doing? Any tricks or secrets to the basic task of making an omelet?

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    This looks like it's just going to turn into a list of everybody's favourite recipes/techniques for omelettes, which would make it essentially a duplicate of How to succeed with making omelette. Would be nice if the people answering would actually focus on the specific issue at hand, that being achieving a more uniform cooking of the egg or (as slim's answer briefly suggests) simply tolerating a bit of uncooked egg.
    – Aaronut
    Dec 22, 2011 at 2:04
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    It is a duplicate of cooking.stackexchange.com/q/4464 - there is no "specific issue at hand" (uncooked egg is only mentioned in passing), so I think this should be closed.
    – slim
    Dec 22, 2011 at 18:04
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    I agree that it's a duplicate. Close it.
    – FuzzyChef
    Dec 22, 2011 at 19:32
  • OK, it's got enough answers by now anyway; this might be a merge candidate later on.
    – Aaronut
    Dec 23, 2011 at 17:43
  • @Aaronut - Agreed, who would have thought omelettes where so popular? The answers in the dupe question are mostly old cooking school class answers, apart form one decent answer from Europe (Thifa). Not a lot of experimentation going on!
    – TFD
    Dec 23, 2011 at 20:40

8 Answers 8

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Cover it!

The secret to omelette not having a runny middle, and being able to handle it without it breaking is to use a loose fitting lid (or another pan, upside down) as a cover for most of, if not all of the initial cooking

This in effect steams the top of the egg, ensuring it is cooked before the bottom burns

This also increases the fluffiness of the egg :-)

You will then be able to fold or flip with ease

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Addressing specifically how to not get that raw egg...

I either cover it like @TFD suggests...or simply stick it in the oven for a minute or so under the broiler, it finishes nice and quick and you can visibly see when its done quite easily.

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To minimize the uncooked egg, as soon as the egg starts to set, use a spatula to push the edges away from the sides of the pan. Tilt the pan to drain some of the uncooked egg into the gap. Continue doing this along the edges as uniformly as possible, until the majority of the runny eggs in the middle are gone.

The process of pushing the edges towards the middle should help avoid your center from becoming too thin, and should add some extra structure to it to avoid having it fall apart when you fold it.

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When I started making omelets I had a hard time with the raw egg in the middle so I would flip the whole egg like pancake and cook it inside out. now I have come to terms but try that so you can get past the raw egg thing.

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For technique like omelet making a video is worth a thousand words. You will find an excellent presentation of omelet making from Alton Brown's show "Good Eats". In the episode "Zen and the Art of Omelet Maintenance" you will learn the secrets of Omelet making.

(link is to part 1, there you will find a link to part 2)

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Although of course you should make omelette to suit your own taste, the archetypal gourmet omelette has uncooked egg in the middle, so I personally fold it over quite early.

Here's what I do.

Crack a couple of eggs into a measuring jug, add salt and pepper, and give it a very gentle stir; enough to break the yolks, but not to make it completely homogeneous. Don't use eggs straight from the fridge; they need to be room temperature. Milk or cream is optional at this point.

Heat the frying pan on medium-to-high. When it's hot, put in a knob of butter, and wait until it begins to smoke.

Tip in the mixed eggs; there should be an immediate sizzle. Swirl the pan so it covers the base of the pan.

Don't touch it until you're ready to fold, which for me is as soon it's solid enough for that to work. If you don't like uncooked egg, maybe leave it longer.

If you're adding a filling, do it now (I like gently fried mushrooms).

Two ways to fold:

  1. By taking the pan handle, shuffling the omelette up the pan side, and flicking it up and over onto itself.
  2. With a spatula

Give it a few seconds more on that side, then flip the whole thing over to brown the other side.

It's ready!

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In culinary school we spent HOURS on Omelets. This is by far the easiest way to prepare a proper french omelet (as an aside a proper french omelet should not have any color and should be just barely finished cooking on the inside).

Start with well beaten eggs, milk is not necessary. Season with salt and pepper. Place a liberal amount of clarified butter (clarified not necessary but helps) in a very clean nonstick pan (we would do a salt treatment - place cup of salt in pan and heat over flame for 20 mins - on our pans to ensure all impurities are gone). Get your fat hot over medium high flame. Now pour in your eggs and using a small plastic fork start scrambling the eggs. This will get as much of the eggs on the heat as possible. This part should take about 20-30 seconds if your pan is hot enough. Now add your ingredients (my fav is shrimp and avocado). At this point if you have any cheese in your ingredients you can cover to help it melt for another 30 or so seconds. Now using a thin spatula, fold over one side and tip the pan over onto a plate.

When we were making them in school the chef had a stopwatch and as soon as we took longer than like 2:30 he would take the pan throw it away and make us start over, if it had any color, same thing. It also is rather helpful if your other ingredients are already warm so you're not having to heat them through the egg barrier and only really just melting the cheese.

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Needed Items 

2 Eggs 2 onion cut it in to small pieces needed salt some butter Mix eggs onion needed salt Make sure the skillet is hot,put some butter in the skillet and also pour egg mixture in the skillet lat it cook for 20 seconds

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