Baked Omelette with feta cheese, cherry tomatos and spring onions

“An egg today is better than a hen tomorrow”. Benjamin Franklin

There are two kinds of omelettes; the pan fried, slightly runny, half moon, individual kind and the oven baked, communal type.  Both should be enjoyed with a green salad and a glass of wine. 

My omelette career started as a teenager in the kitchen of a rural Dorset English pub (the Horns Inn, Furzehill).  One of my tasks was cooking up individual pan fried omelettes to order, usually four on the go at once. 

These days, however, I tend to oven bake, communal, frittata style omelettes.   If you’re feeding a lot of people or want something substantial you can add sliced cooked potato (Spanish style).  Just lightly fry/ heat through the cooked potatoes before adding the eggs (a great use for left over potato).  I have also added cooked chick peas to omelettes before and they give a slight nutty taste and work well with red pepper.

For oven baked omelettes, I use roughly use two eggs per person and then add one or two extra for luck depending on numbers.   Add to the eggs, a dash of milk and a pinch of sea salt and whisk it up.  Some cooks think you should not use any milk in omelettes, but I think a little is fine, although too much milk would be a poor omelette.  Try to use butter as your oil, in the frying, as it adds to the taste, particularly if you are using onions, mushrooms or such like.   

Some of my favourite baked omelettes fillings are;

-       Feta cheese (cubed), chopped spring onions and sliced cherry tomatoes (salty cheese and crunch of the spring onions is a lovely combination).

-       Courgette, onion and fresh mint leaf (fantastic flavours).

-       Cheddar cheese and onion (Mr K’s favourite).

-       'Garden' omelette (vintage Horns Inn favourite - onion, cheese and chuck in some frozen peas).

-       Chick pea, red pepper and mushroom (watch the mushrooms don’t turn it grey and soggy – drain if necessary and don’t use much butter).

-       Sliced potato, chopped green beans and parmesan cheese.

The fillings are important for oven baked omelettes and you can go overboard and be thrifty adding left overs for a family supper or be creative with fresh herbs.  The pan-fried variety is a more purist version with complete focus on the egg.  I’ll write about runny pan-fried omelettes separately as they are all about technique and simplicity.