French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [113]
OMELETTE BRAYAUDE
PORK AND POTATO OMELETTE
A dish from Riom in the Auvergne.
Cut a slice of salt pork or a rather thick rasher of fat, unsmoked bacon and a large potato into small dice. Melt the bacon in an omelette pan. When the fat begins to run, put in the potato and cook gently until it is soft. Shake the pan now and again so that the potatoes do not stick and, if necessary, add a little more fat or butter.
Beat 2 or 3 eggs, season with salt and pepper, turn up the heat under the pan and add a small piece of butter; pour in the eggs; let them nearly set, as for an ordinary omelette; pour a little hot fresh cream on the top and slide the omelette out flat on to a hot plate. Sprinkle, if you like, with a little grated cheese.
Enough for two or three people, for it is rather a filling dish.
OMELETTE AU BOUDIN DE NANCY
OMELETTE WITH BLACK PUDDING
The blood sausages, or black puddings, of Nancy in Lorraine, are renowned. The usual variety to be bought in England are rather insipid, but for those who make their own or can buy them from a pork butcher who makes them properly flavoured with onions, here is a very excellent recipe.
About 6 oz. of blood sausage is cut into thickish slices which are fried lightly in butter. Chop very finely a couple of shallots and some parsley. Melt this mixture in butter; add it to 6 eggs and beat them lightly with salt and pepper. Using half the eggs make an omelette, turn it out flat on to a hot round dish. On top place the slices of boudin. Make another flat omelette with the rest of the eggs, turn it out on top of the sausage, and serve instantly.
In other parts of France I have come across an omelette campagnarde, a very similar omelette to the above, made with ordinary pork sausage of the coarsely-cut Toulouse type. It makes a very good lunch dish for two people. The sausage used can be either a cooked or uncooked one; if it is already cooked, skin and slice it and just heat the slices very gently in butter for a few seconds, and proceed as for the omelette au boudin.
An ordinary folded omelette can also, of course, be made with sausage but, in this case, cut the sausage into rather small cubes.
OMELETTE AUX MOULES
MUSSEL OMELETTE
Scrub, beard and thoroughly clean 1 pint of mussels—small ones when possible. Reject any which are gaping open or broken. Put them in a saucepan with just a little water, and cook over a fast flame until they open, which takes 5 to 7 minutes. Remove each from the pan as soon as it is properly open.
In a mixture of butter and oil melt the finely chopped white part of 1 fairly big leek; add 2 skinned, roughly chopped tomatoes and seasonings of freshly milled pepper, a little salt, a scrap of garlic if you like. Let all this cook until it is quite thick. Put in the shelled mussels and moisten with a few drops of their stock, filtered through a fine cloth. Add plenty of chopped parsley. This filling is added to the omelette when the eggs are already in the pan, and makes enough for two, or even three, 2-egg omelettes.
OMELETTE AU THON
TUNNY-FISH OMELETTE
First prepare a beurre maître-d’hôtel by working together a tablespoon of butter, a little chopped parsley, salt and lemon juice. Then in a small saucepan heat for a minute or two, in butter, a heaped tablespoon of tunny fish drained from its oil and mixed with a scrap of garlic, about half a chopped shallot, and freshly-ground pepper. While butter to cook the omelette is heating in the omelette pan, put the beurre maître-d’hôtel on to a warmed omelette dish. As soon as the eggs are in the pan add to them the tunny preparation. Turn the completed omelette out on top of the maître-d’hôtel butter, which should by now be just melting, and eat it at once. Proportions for a 3- or 4-egg omelette.
What, it may be asked, is to be done with the rest of the tin of tunny fish? The omelette is so good that perhaps it will be wanted to make another next day; or it can be pounded up and stirred into a mayonnaise for hard-boiled