Yesterday I made an omelette. Two in fact. While I don’t except any congratulations for this – I have, after all, done the same many times before – I am not averse to receiving any adulation you wish to bestow. That said, given the state of the second omelette – the one I had – you may find it more fitting to belittle and mock. I won’t hold it against you if this is your choice. I am, however, going to explain why the second omelette was such a disaster. There are – as I am sure you would expect – mitigating circumstances surrounding the event. Probably seven.
1. Rushing. I don’t know whether you have ever made two omelettes before, I suspect you are not as maverick as I and as such have not. Let me tell you now though, it is not as easy as it sounds. Unless you are a greedy bugger – or hungry – the chances are you are making two omelettes because there are two people wishing to have one. This was the case last night. I wanted one. My girlfriend agreed that she would have one. Being nice and not wishing to relinquish control of the frying pan, I made my girlfriend her omelette first. But then I wanted to eat mine with her. (I have long suspected we are the last two romantics in the Maidstone catchment area.) As a result I rushed the manufacture of my omelette. And as I am sure you are aware, a premature omelette is not an omelette at all. It’s a mess.
2. The Difficult Second Omelette. We have all heard of the phrase, ‘the difficult second album’. Apart from maybe Oasis. And Toploader. Though admittedly Toploader struggled with their first album too so maybe that doesn’t count. Anyway, I digress. My point is that the pressure was on and, instead of just concentrating on making the second omelette the best it could be, I tried to make it as good as the first omelette. As soon as I did that I was in competition with myself. And I cracked under the strain.
3. Whisking. The trick with making a good omelette mixture is not too whisk it too much. I forgot that it had been whisked before the making of omelette number one. So I whisked before construction of number two. The result was too light and runny. As a result I got air pockets under my omelette. I was trying to salvage the mission from that point on. And that is not an environment conducive to success.
4. Mixture Fail. There is also another reason omelette one was more a success. There was enough mixture to comfortably fill the frying pan. When it came to the second effort, there wasn’t. I’ll be honest. I was stretching the credibility of myself as an omelette maker here. Without enough mixture I added a little milk straight into the frying pan. That was stupid. The frying pan spat it back at me.
5. Tosser. To toss or not to toss? This question is widely debated in omelette making circles. I adhere to the point of view that – before filling is added – the omelette should be tossed. Yesterday, I tossed one of the omelettes and didn’t the other. I’ll let you guess which is which.
6. Filling. We have a rule in our house. As I am the man, I have more food. I like this rule and I didn’t even think of it. So when it came to filling the omelettes, I made sure there was more filling for me. Unfortunately, the amount of filling was calculated on how big the omelette would be. As my omelette was 80% of it’s intended size I really should have put 80% of the filling inside. But I didn’t. I’m a man. So I put it all in. And then I tried to fold the omelette in half. And that is when it snapped at the seams.
7. Manoeuvring. Taking the omelette from pan to plate should be a simple process. Assuming you have actually made an omelette it is possible to tilt the pan and watch the omelette slide into position. Which is what happened with omelette one. Omelette two though wasn’t an omelette. It was a mess. And the mess containing cheese which was now sticking to the pan. I had no option but to shovel it out. And that’s what I did.
