How to Make a Classic French Omelette, According to a Michelin-Starred Chef

Hi, I'm Philip Tessier, chef partner at Press Restaurant in St. Helena. We're in the middle of Napa Valley. Today, I'm going to show you how to make a French classic omelet. Real simply, for this preparation, all you need is just a few eggs. We have some fresh sea salt, a little bit of salted butter. So first thing, we're just going to take our eggs. We're just going to crack them into our bowl. Generally, for me, three eggs is perfect because it's just enough for a meal. Gives you enough egg to work with in the pan itself. I like to use a fork to whisk the eggs just because it doesn't aerate the eggs too much. You really want to make sure the heat of your pan is just, say, medium heat. The basic principle of making an omelet is just the balance of temperature. So a lot of times, I'll kind of pull it off the heat a little bit. You don't want to get it too hot. Eggs will set too quick. We're going to start by just putting a little butter in the pan. Really just coat the pan. Our butter is just melted. You can see it's bubbling just a little bit, but definitely not going to brown. We're just going to add the eggs. We're going to add them all at once. You should hear just like a little bit of a sizzle before they go in. Begin to bring all the eggs together in the pan. So while we're stirring the eggs, I'm just looking to break up the eggs into little small curds. For me, basically, you want to break it up quickly in the beginning, and then we're just going to allow it to set a little bit. The more small we get everything, the more smaller curds. So once we get it to this point, you can kind of see there's like scrambled pretty much everywhere. You got a lot of residual heat in the pan. Kind of let it come together. And then this is where we want to kind of just make sure there's no liquidy eggs in there. Basically, what you're looking for here is you want it to be just set on the edges. When your spatula kind of goes around, you're going to see it just kind of set in the middle. A little bit of time on the here. If it's not quite there, just to get it there, you just want to make sure that you don't let it sit too long. And then that's when you kind of get that caramelized brown egg and the texture changes dramatically. We're just going to take a little bit of salt. I like to season just the inside of the egg a little bit. And this is the moment too, if you want to add whatever you want, a little cheese, a little fresh basil, some tomato. You got caviar truffles at the house, go for it. So for me, I'll take this, kind of pick it up a little bit from the back. Kind of fold it about a third of the way in. And then I'll just kind of roll it up on itself. And then just kind of nudge it to the front of the pan before you go all the way. And then last thing is just to make sure you kind of tuck in the back end. And then we'll just grab a little knob of butter. And then we'll kind of just run this guy all along here. Add a little fresh salt to the end. You can finish with a little fresh cracked pepper, a little bit of some fresh herbs. All right, that's a classic French omelet. I'm Philip Tessier here for Rob Report.