La tortilla perfecta de Jazz Chef
Omelettes are considered the gold standard in eggs, and in good culinary practice, although, shhh… getting neglected fried eggs to rise, and perfect scrambles are actually a bit more culinary machismo, because more skill and patience is needed.
En la película "The Hundred-Foot Journey", un joven chef indio que aspira a ser uno de los mejores del mundo, un chef con categoría Michelin, tiene que convencer al dueño de un restaurante francés con categoría Michelin, situado enfrente del restaurante indio de su familia, de que es digno de trabajar en su cocina.
Madame Mallory sirve una tarea: "Hazme una tortilla".
Aunque la escena está rodada como un maravilloso food porn, y estoy seguro de que el chef que realmente preparó la tortilla para ello es bastante whippin, como el 99,95% de los huevos que se hacen, se hizo (gasp) mal.
LA TORTILLA PERFECTA
Great omelettes start with great eggs. Read my article on how to shop for them, avoid the egg scams, and buying unsafe eggs. is our friend, overcoming centuries of “grandma/mom did it this way” with nice simple explanations as to why foods cooking behaves in certain, predictable ways.
Aprenda a poner la ciencia de su parte y podrá eclipsar a todos los mejores chefs del mundo, profesionales o civiles, salvo a unos pocos.
We know that, in eggs, 68°C/154°F gives us a whole lot more. The Digest version of the article (Which you SHOULD read, hint, hint) is that eggs form protein chains that trap steam, allowing them to rise.
El calor se acumula, y nuestra temperatura, porque las estufas domésticas tienen un alcance notoriamente variable.
By the time that we’re done, our omelette, if we start at the idea cooking temperature, will have hit about 76°c / 168°F. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends a finished temperature of 71°c/160°F or over to eliminate internal bacterial contamination that can occur in raw or undercooked eggs. Many doctors and scientists, though have found that Salmonella, the most feared bacteria, is cooked off by 50°c / 122°F, for those of you with concerns about not blasting your eggs like they were the Gatekeeper of Gozer in Ghostbusters.
Fried egg, scramble, or omelette, there is no reason why you should commit “eggicide” and turn eggs into the fake rubber stuff of magic shop rubber gag toys.
I know how y’all hate thermometers, but zippy cool ones like the Thermapen Mark IV, pictured here, make it easy to check the pan and the eggs to keep them in the range where the lattices, the protein pockets that capture steam and make eggs rise, are maximized, and your omelettes routinely come out in the all-too un-culinary phrase “BAD ASS.”
PENÚLTIMO JAZZ FOOD
The omelette is infinitely riffable. Like any other holder of stuff, too often chefs focus on the trees, and miss the forest. We can improve the lift of the omelette by following the temperature rules, but allowing the time for it to hit full stride, patience, is the difference between “Awful” House hash slingers and masters of the art.
ESTRATEGIA DE LA TORTILLA
Hay mucha mala costumbre en el juego de hacer tortillas. Vamos a corregirla.
- Allow time for the basic eggs to form – All cooking duration is a combination of heat and time. Lower the temp, lengthen the time, and allow the egg’s proteins maximum forming time. Don’t toss things into your omelette right away. Give the eggs time to form the lattices that build its structure. Otherwise you have chunks poking out of whatever you put in.
- Pre-cook the ingredients in the center – You’ve seen this a million times at the brunch buffet stations. Chefs, mostly for speed, sauteé the stuff going in the omelette, and then pour the egg mixture, usually from some container that was made hours earlier, over it. The eggs, probably thin factory jobs, are not aerated well anymore, so that “lift” is lost. The hot pan sears the eggs, and the exhausted oil into the eggs, adding a ton of calories, and a bunch of free-radicals from the heat and oil are “locked in.”Any vegetables or meats that require cooking should be done in a separate sauteé, or steamed, as appropriate to the form. Sauteé at a medium heat, below the smoke point of any fats used. Use avocado or rice bran, both neutral oils with high smoke point temperatures that have no aftertaste like olive or canola.
When done sauteéing, turn the ingredients out onto some paper towels to capture the oils for a couple of moments. It cuts down unnecessary calories and cooked oils that can lead to feelings of bloating or indigestion after the meal.
- Strong flavors and fats – As a longtime watcher of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, which I watch to see if there are any decent techniques hiding out there that can be riffed upon, I can tell you that strong flavors and fats are cheap tricks. They’re like holding heroin and a needle in front of someone who’s addicted. Cater to our palettes, very sophisticated things, instead of our fat-addicted brains.If you’re going to use bacon, chorizo, or other strong flavors, LESS IS MORE. You want them to blend with the other tastes, including the egg, which will amaze you when it’s made delicately! Have confidence in your product not to take the easy way out.
- Add Cheese Last – Cheese should be the last thing that you put in at the folding of the omelette. Once you fold, it will continue to cook, and the steam will cause it to rise. It will also melt the cheese perfectly. Avoid American, which is largely water, and, if you use a low fat 2% shred, allow for a bit more time because it has a slower melt point. Remembering my Less is More theory, LESS CHEESE, though, is not only better for you, but it allows the other ingredients in your omelette to be tasted. You obliterate an omelette with fats (cheese) only when you have something to hide in the omelette’s build, and this will be perfect, so you can paint, not slather.
Have all ingredients ready for your omelette at hand – Mise en place is very important to the success of good omelettes!
- A warming oven is your friend – Unless you have multiple pans, an option if you’re Shiva or an octopus, you can’t make all of the omelettes simultaneously. So plate and put the omelettes into a warm oven of about 70°c/160°F while you finish the others. If you are making anything with brie or whey-based “American” cheese, that may need to be a bit cooler on the warming, if you can set your oven to warm. If you can’t warm it up to 175-200, and then turn it off. It will work just fine.
- Since egg whites are easy to come by these days, I add some egg white to lower cholesterol and improve the lift of the lattices in the whites’ protein chains a bit.
- Evaluate your eggs – When you put the eggs in the work bowl, how are they? Viscosity is key. If they’re thick, then you’ll add the milk along with the small touch of cream. *If they’re thin mass-market eggs, you’ll leave the milk out.
- Liquids as time stalls* – If, for some reason, you need more time on your eggs, add a bit of milk or water and it will lengthen cooking enough to get whatever you need to do done.
- White pepper/nutmeg? A pinch doesn’t impart a ton of flavor, but it puts some pop with a little nutty edge on to the back, which accentuates the ghee used as the lubricating fat.
- Whisking – Unlike the perfect scrambled egg, we want to whisk/whip the egg more evenly here. We’re realigning and highly aerating, so put your back into it!
INGREDIENTES BÁSICOS
(Para 1 persona; escalable 1:1)
Tiempo de cocción - 7-9 minutos
Tiempo de preparación: 8-15 minutos, dependiendo del relleno.
- 1 Vital Farms pasture-raised egg
- 1/4 taza de claras de huevo
- 15 ml / 1 cucharada de nata
- 5 ml / 1 cucharadita de leche*.
- 2 g / 1/4 cucharadita de sal rosa del Himalaya
- Pinch of ground white pepper
- Una pizca de nuez moscada
- 10g /2 tsp. Organic Valley Purity Farms Ghee
MISE-EN-PLACE
- Sartenes cerámicas (preferibles) o antiadherentes
- Espátula de silicona
- Cepillo de silicona
- Metal French whisk/whip.
CÓMO
- Prepare primero todos los ingredientes de la tortilla.
- Si va a cocinar ingredientes calientes para el relleno, hágalo con tiempo suficiente para que se terminen mientras el huevo se solidifica. El huevo necesitará 3-4 minutos desde el momento en que se puso en la sartén para formarse lo suficientemente bien como para recibir el relleno. Planifique en consecuencia.
- While your filling items are cooking, if they are, whisk together all ingredients except the ghee.
- Spoon the ghee out of the jar with a clean spoon (Avoid cross-contamination) into the pan. Brush with the silicone brush.
- Quick whisk the egg mix to aerate again. Add to the pan. Formation begins
Rising – As the omelette rises, rotate the pan a bit to level out the egg evenly throughout.
Shaping – Using your silicone spatula, strengthen and shape the edges by pushing them inward a bit. You can also roll some of the uncooked egg into those spaces to level it out.
Añade el queso - Una vez que el fondo se vuelva más opaco, y todavía haya huevo formándose en la parte superior, añade el queso si estás usando uno bajo en grasa. Ya hay suficiente "elevación", y lo incorporará y derretirá, ya que tarda más. Si no, espera a ver la parte superior más cocida para brie o "americano".
LIFTING – Gently slide the spatula under the omelette to make sure that nothing has been sticking. Work around the entire pan so when you go to fold, there will be no breaks.
BINDING – The omelette continues to rise, and the top with the cheese binds, still just a touch wet and uncooked, but we still have a little ways to go. If you are going to add any extra ingredients, now would be the time. Remember not to overload the omelette, as there is only so much space that it will have in the fold, and we want bottom to top making closer contact for the remaining cook because steam is still powering the project.
FOLDING – Insert the rubber spatula under the omelette and gently fold in half.
FINAL RISE – Even though we flipped the egg, we leave it in the pan for another minute or two. It allows the top skin to finish cooking, and, amazingly, with the heat redistributed, there is a bit more rise left in it.
PLATE – Finish plating the omelette with the sides and/or a little chili thread, or something else that looks nice for garnish. Serve.
