Omelette gets upgrade
In order to gain the wide range of gruelling experience necessary to become a well-rounded cook, I’ve had to acquire many different kitchen positions.
I subsequently quit those positions once I had outgrown their menus, much to the frothing ire of many restaurant owners.
That said, there were more than a few skills I had not yet even begun to master when I had clawed my way into my first camp cooking position two years after completing culinary school. One of those important skills was making something that I now find second nature thanks to my time spent at that infamous mining camp: omelettes – and here’s the story of how that changed.
I was heals over the moon when I managed to land that camp job. Aside from the career prestige, the money was good and it promised to be one heck of a learning experience. After the first couple of weeks it felt a lot more like a culinary boot camp than a mining camp, however. The silver lining being that it provided a chance to grow my skills while under extreme pressure – a perfect trialby-fire learning environment for a green, but somewhat overconfident, cook who “learned best when stressed” as my instructor used to describe me.
The hardest trial at first was time management. According to old my work journal, it was my second week into the night shift when I got a request from a camp patron that just about gave me a panic attack.
“I’d like an omelette, please if that’s alright... one with some sautéed peppers and ham,” he said.
The guys usually gave me and the other turn-around cooks a hard time as a way of venting their frustration to someone they mistook for subservient, but this camp goer was always friendly and appreciative, so despite the fact that I was already pressed for time, I decided to try to fulfil his request. I got out a sauté pan from the under-table storage and fired it up. I had never actually made an omeltee before that day but figured it was easy enough. I was incredibly wrong. The fillings were cooked and seasoned perfectly but when I attempted to wrap it up for him, I couldn’t get the eggs to fluff up or flip, resulting in a ripped-up mess when I was done.
Still, the man didn’t complain and the very next day he asked for another omelette, this time with ground beef and cheese. I was a bit surprised but I made it for him anyway, the second result being no better than the first.
The third day he had the same request and continued to do so every morning. It got to the point where I was so frustrated with my lack of ability that I researched omelette tips online and struggled even harder to have an extra 15 minutes in the mornings to not have to rush through them.
By the end of my turn-around, I had managed to cook my very first complete and pictureworthy omelette and was so confident in my ability to make them that on my return two weeks later, I had made a small omellette station with a diverse stuffing menu, showing off my ambidexterity by cooking multiple omelettes at once. The most popular of which was…
Bursey’s Pizza Omelette
3 large eggs ½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese 2 inches of pepperoni, thinly sliced 3 slices Canadian back bacon 2 tbsp pizza sauce (or tomato sauce with basil) 4 tbsp diced green and red pepper Salt and pepper to taste
Directions: Prepare your stuffing ingredients in bowls. Heat a sauté pan with 2 tbsp of cooking oil on medium high heat and fry your back bacon and peppers to desired doneness, remove from pan and set aside. Whip your eggs vigorously for a total of 3 minutes and quickly transfer them to a pan. Once the sides of the egg begin to life and you notice a slight browning underneath, carefully lift the egg with a spatula and flip it over. Turn heat down to minimum and along one half of the egg – assemble sauce, cheese, bacon, pepperoni, and peppers in that order. Carefully fold over the other half of the egg to create a crescent. Season and serve immediately with a smear of sour cream and extra pizza sauce.
NOTE: This article is dedicated to the nameless man who wouldn’t stop ordering omelettes at breakfast until I got them right, and recognized the value and hard work of cooks.