La baveuse, a French omelette for a gourmande mouth?
I was reading about “French omelette” on the blog “a year on the grill”. I never thought that such a thing as a “French omelette” ever existed. There are many recipes, and tastes and colors. So I have nothing against this blogger’s version of omelet, especially if he enjoyed it.
That said terrible cooking exists… and he pasted a video of the famous Julia. That’s my badmouthing week, so let’s go. I never got the appeal of that person. I was indifferent. Whenever I saw her, I found her cuisine totally foreign to me, which is weird as she says she does “French”. I know hundreds of chefs and amateurs cooking French, particularly here in Osaka (I sometimes work in a nest of them…) and even if many never traveled to France, I can recognize and enjoy many of their dishes, and even if I can’t find that familiar, that’s good. But Julia cooks like a belledoche(horrid mother-in-law), except a regular belledochehas no access to Crisco.
Here she burns butter in a non-stick pan (that should never be used at high heat) and she makes an extremely cooked omelet with strips of black butter. The fact is that’s terribly unhealthy. Even if I liked my omelette “dry”, I wouldn’t cook it that way.
Then taste is subjective, but the most common adjective associated to omelette in French is baveuse… That you’re free to like it or not.
Baveuse ! An omelette to drool over…
We have an omelette celeb in France, it’sla mere Poulard.
Her name is now used by a very famous tourist trap. That used to be a sincerly friendly place, welcoming travelers warmly… until 1930, when our heroin died.
Madame Poulard avait confectionné une omelette rosée, baveuse, savoureuse à souhait, et qu’elle offrait elle-même à ses hôtes : “Voilà Messieurs ! Vous n’aurez pas attendu trop longtemps. Ne craignez pas, on vous prépare une seconde omelette.”
Translation :
“Madame Poulard had crafted an omelette, pinky, baveuse, extremely tasty, that she would present herself to her guests : “Here it is, Gentlemen ! You’ have not waited too much. Don’t worry we are already preparing a second omelette.”
Here is what she was saying about her recipe :
Autour de l’omelette de la “Mère Poulard”, c’est un cycle de légendes qui s’est formé. Tous les maîtres-queux du monde ont émis la prétention d’en révéler le secret. Tel livre de cuisine nous apprendra, par exemple, que Madame Poulard écartait une partie des blancs d’oeufs, dans la proportion de un sur trois, et versait dans la poêle, au cours de l’opération, un verre à bordeaux de crème fraîche. Erreur.
“Pouvez-vous croire, disait l’hôtesse de Saint Michel Tête d’Or, pouvez-vous penser que j’aurais perdu tous ces blancs ? Non. Je prenais les oeufs et les battais tels quels. Quand à la crème, pure invention. – Ce qui est vrai, c’est que nous avions toujours le meilleur beurre du pays et toujours très frais.Nous n’y regardions pas. Nous en mettions dans la poêle un bon morceau, que nous ne laissions pas roussir. Surtout, nous nous gardions de trop cuire.
Source : A book about “La Mere Poulard” written in 1932
Translation (roughly) :
“There were many legends around the omelette of la mere Poulard, many versions of her recipes were published, saying she was adding cream, separating white and yolks and whatever…
But she said : “You think I would have discarded so many egg whites ? No, I was beating whole eggs simply. Cream is an invention too. What is true is we have always had the best butter in the country, always very fresh and we used it without restriction. We’d put a good amount in the pan and we would make in sort that it never changes of color. The important is not over-cooking.”
I like her. She respects her ingredients.
Eggs, ideally 6. If they are small 4 is a minimum, 2 very big ones can do it. Otherwise you need a mini-pan. They have to be room temperature.
Butter. Ideally real good French butter, freshly hand-churned, etc…
The world is not ideal. It’s Hokkaido Tokaichi butter, not fermented. It has to be room temp. too. I slice it to make it warm up quicker. I used 10 g.
9 grammes into the eggs, with pepper and salt (if your butter is not salted).
Off course, I whisked with a fork. What else we have in a French kitchen ? Chopsticks ? A Kitchenaid ? A laser egg beater from the NASA ?
Heat a pan. It can be non-stick, but don’t use it at maximum heat in this case.
Grease it with oil or lard, you can pass a kitchen paper to remove the excess. Out of the heat, add the rest of butter, allow it to melt. Pour all the eggs…
>>>> 
On moderate heat, stir slightly on the surface. Also lift up the pan for a few seconds a few times. Stop when it’s very BAVEUSE … or not (your taste).
Now there is a way to fold the omelette… that requires a little training. I could do it a few years ago, but I need retraining. It’s totally useless, but that makes an effect if the chef folds the omelette and brings it to the table, then unfold it in front of you, so you get a circle of omelette baveuse.. You can simply bring the pan to the table and slip the omelette onto the plate. That’s what we did at home.
I failed to fold it as you can see…
I have to confess I don’t own any omelette pan. (Santa Klaus, did you read that ?) I did it in a high sauce pan. So consider it’s a miracle that the omelette landed on my plate in a so nice shape. LOL.
But that was yuuuuummy !
Mizuna as a salad, but with French raspeberry wine vinegar.
A little gratin of white beans with herbes de Provence and tomato.
A simple shiitake broth, because it’s cold today. Home-baked bread.
Cal 604 F32.1g C49.9g P34.3g
Another style :
Tamagoyaki (omelette roulee japonaise)
