Rolled Omelette – Julia Child’s 100th Birthday Celebration

On August 15th Julia Child would have turned 100. She is the Lady of Modern American Food preparation and inspired million of people to get into the kitchen with her “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” book, which took her a while to get published. She had a TV show, or rather several I believe, and of course many books. A revival of her persona and her cooking style took place thanks to the movie “Julie & Julia”, in which we see Julie Powell (one of the first food bloggers I dare say) tackles all recipes from the book. Child’s Publisher launches a “JC100” celebration where food bloggers around the world receive a recipes each Monday (before everyone else) to recreate and twist, or stick to the original.

I also got an e-mail, asking me to participate and I am glad to do so. It is already Week 3 and I finally got around to make the first recipe: Rolled Omelette – Omelette Rouleé. The recipe is excerpted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child. Copyright ©1961 by Alfred A. Knopf. Reprinted with permission from the publisher Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. It is pretty basic but still needs some skills. Julia Child even says that you might have to try several times, throwing out bad omelettes, before you make a good one.

Ingredients:

– 2 to 3 eggs
– salt
– pepper
– butter

My version:

– spring onions
– mushrooms

Start with the spring onions and mushrooms, clean them and slice them. Then sauté them lightly and set aside.

Hello mushrooms!

Crack 2 or 3 eggs, which is good for one person, into a bowl, add salt and pepper and lightly beat with a fork. Julia recommends to only beat for 30 to 40 strokes, otherwise the omelette won’t be fluffy. I listened.

Make sure your pan is a non stick pan an about 7 inches wide. Heat it well and add some butter. Once the butter starts to brown you are good to go. Add the egg to the pan and start yanking after about 3 seconds at a 20° angle so that the egg moves freely. This also means that the egg will gather at the far end of your pan and start rolling. When the egg starts to thicken you add the mushrooms and spring onion.

Once the omelette is rolled and shaped, keep it at the bottom for several seconds so that it can brown. The inside will be still soft and creamy. Then let it slide on a plate and sprinkle with more spring onions or parsley.

Voilá! You have made a French omelette!

Honestly, it was a bit more difficult than anticipated. The rolling is a bit trickier but works nicely. It was delicious, light and fluffy. I think I will make all my omelettes like this from now on.

Full instructions with pictures from the book can be found here.

Happy Cooking!