Omelette

Omelette
Place of origin France
Main ingredients Eggs, butter or oil
Cookbook: Omelette  Media: Omelette
An omelette foldover
Omelette served with lettuce
Masala omelette with bread toasties

In cuisine, an omelette or omelet is a dish made from beaten eggs quickly fried with butter or oil in a frying pan (without stirring as in scrambled egg). It is quite common for the omelette to be folded around a filling such as cheese, chives, vegetables, meat (often ham or bacon), or some combination of the above. To obtain a fluffy texture, whole eggs or sometimes only egg whites are beaten with a small amount of milk or cream, or even water, the idea being to have "bubbles" of water vapour trapped within the rapidly cooked egg.

History

The fluffy omelette is a refined version of an ancient food. According to Alan Davidson,[1] the French word omelette came into use during the mid-16th century, but the versions alumelle and alumete are employed by the Ménagier de Paris (II, 5) in 1393.[2] Rabelais (Pantagruel, IV, 9) mentions an homelaicte d'oeufs,[3] Olivier de Serres an amelette, François Pierre La Varenne's Le cuisinier françois (1651) has aumelette, and the modern omelette appears in Cuisine bourgoise (1784).[4]

According to the founding legend of the annual giant Easter omelette of Bessières, Haute-Garonne, when Napoleon Bonaparte and his army were traveling through southern France, they decided to rest for the night near the town of Bessières. Napoleon feasted on an omelette prepared by a local innkeeper, and thought it was a culinary delight. He then ordered the townspeople to gather all the eggs in the village and to prepare a huge omelette for his army the next day.[5]

Records

On March 19, 1994, the largest omelette (128.5 m2, 1,383 sq ft) in the world at the time was made with 160,000 eggs in Yokohama, Japan,[6] but was subsequently overtaken by another, weighing 2,950 kilograms (6,500 lb), made by the Canadian Lung Association at the Brockville Memorial Centre in Brockville, Ontario, Canada, on May 11, 2002.[7] In turn, that record was surpassed on August 11, 2012, by an omelette cooked by the Ferreira do Zêzere City Council in Santarém, Portugal. This record-breaking omelette weighed 6,466 kg (14,255 lb), and required 145,000 eggs and a 10.3-metre (34 ft) diameter pan.[8]

Variations

omelet
Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy 657 kJ (157 kcal)
0.7 g
12 g
10.6 g
Vitamins
Vitamin A equiv.
(22%)

172 μg

Thiamine (B1)
(9%)

0.1 mg

Riboflavin (B2)
(33%)

0.4 mg

Niacin (B3)
(1%)

0.1 mg

Pantothenic acid (B5)
(24%)

1.2 mg

Vitamin B6
(8%)

0.1 mg

Folate (B9)
(10%)

39 μg

Vitamin B12
(46%)

1.1 μg

Choline
(43%)

212 mg

Vitamin D
(5%)

29 IU

Vitamin E
(8%)

1.2 mg

Vitamin K
(4%)

4.5 μg

Minerals
Calcium
(5%)

47 mg

Iron
(12%)

1.5 mg

Magnesium
(3%)

10 mg

Phosphorus
(23%)

162 mg

Potassium
(2%)

114 mg

Sodium
(11%)

161 mg

Zinc
(9%)

0.9 mg

Other constituents
Water 75.9 g
Cholesterol 356 mg

Percentages are roughly approximated using US recommendations for adults.
Source: USDA Nutrient Database
Indian omelette
Tamagoyaki, Japanese omelette
Omurice, Fried rice rolled with omelette

See also

References

  1. Alan Davidson, Oxford Companion to Food (Oxford University Press) 1999 (pp. 550, 553)
  2. "Omelette"
  3. "En pareille alliance, l'un appeloit une sienne, mon homelaicte. Elle le nommoit mon oeuf, et estoient alliés comme une homelaicte d'oeufs".
  4. Three noted by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, (Anthea Bell, tr.) A History of Food, revised ed, 2009, p. 326; de Serres note "Le glossaire accadien"
  5. "History of the Giant Omelette". Abbeville Giant Omelette Celebration. Retrieved 2007-06-15.
  6. Guinness Book of World Records 2001. ISBN 0-85112-102-0.
  7. "Largest Omelette". Guinness World Records. Retrieved 2007-06-15.
  8. "Largest Omelette". Guinness World Records. Retrieved 2014-07-16.
  9. "آشنایی با روش تهیه نرگسی؛ غذای رژیمی". Hamshahri newspaper. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  10. "SPINACH OMELETTE". Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  11. "Baghali Ghatogh (Lima Beans with Eggs and Dill)". Saveur magazine. Feb 20, 2012. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  12. Egg Foo Yung
  13. Denver Omelette Scrambler
  14. Julia Child, Bertholle, L., Beck, S., Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Vol. I), page 135, Knopf, 1961
  15. Omeleta me Kolokythakia
  16. Kai Yat Sai Talay
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