Wednesday, August 12, 2020

The Green Omelette

      No, it's not a forgotten radio-drama superhero (although...).  It's what I'm having for breakfast.

     There were leftover blue corn chips.  I like to use something to give my omelettes a little structural integrity -- smashed saltines, bread crumbs, even broken potato chips or a little cornmeal.

     Blue corn chips result in a mottled green batter, with bits of yellow and blue.  A little tarragon and some Italian herb mix for flavor rounded it out.  (I've been using a heavy juice glass* in a measuring cup as a mortar and pestle to crush whatever cooked-grain product I use.  It works well.)

     I'd fried bacon and then some fresh mushrooms in the bacon grease, poured the grease out (yum, mushroom grease -- worth saving if you're going to pan-cook lean meat within a day or two) and wiped the skillet down; you don't want more than the least film of oil or grease when making an omelette in a non-stick pan.  A finely diced radish and Manchego cheese completed the filling.  The end result looked, well, a bit scary -- should an omelette be that color?  Those colors?

     Yep, it sure could.  It was as good an omelette as any I've made.
__________________________
* French-made Duralex.  I happened across one years ago (yes, most of my dinner service was thrift-store stuff, used or cheap; the nice Corningware "Bountiful Harvest" pattern plates, bowls and cups were a real point of pride when I got them!)  and used it for over a decade until it got knocked onto a hard floor.   Not long afterward, I was looking for new small glasses,  remembered how nice the Duralex one had been, and went looking.  Couldn't find the exact style but a half-dozen plain ones weren't expensive and have held up well, with just the right balance between delicacy and durability.

2 comments:

JayNola said...

So you can make a green omelette without breaking a few green eggs?

Roberta X said...

I thought the plain eggs were implicit!

I usually buy brown-shell eggs. There's no reason for one shell color over another in general, but I do prefer eggs from free-range chickens, who have had a chance to eat a few bugs or other protein (chickens will go after a mouse nest in a scary way, I'm told), and the local market usually only has those with brown shells.

Locally-Grown Gardens has farm-fresh free-range eggs with lovely big orange yolks -- but they have limited quantities and I don't get over there as often as I wish.

A good-quality uncooked egg has a relatively strong shell, unclouded white and a brightly-colored yolk tending towards orange. Really fragile shells and pale-yellow yolks usually mean factory-farm eggs. Nothing wrong with them but they don't have a lot of flavor compared to the ones with bigger, brighter yolks.

(I still think duck eggs are better for baking, but we had a good source of them when I was growing up: a pair of white ducks, who could be relied on for a pair of eggs every morning. They seemed puzzled by those strange white things, and were happy we took them out of the nest. Duck eggs are strong-flavored when cooked by themselves, though I liked them well enough.)