Lemon Soufflé Omelette
This is a recipe from Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course.
I ran into trouble with the Delia Smith cookery book. I started looking up dessert recipes and I couldn’t choose one. There are loads of gluten free desserts in it – and not engineered gluten-free things, just loads of desserts that don’t contain flour – which is great but I want to make all of them and I can’t decide what to do for the dessert recipe.
So I decided instead to look up breakfast recipes instead. I turned to the egg section and I was thinking about doing an omelette savoyard, which is the first recipe in the section, but I decided to look through all of them and there are a couple of desserts at the end, Zabaglione and this Lemon Soufflé Omelette.
The ingredients for this recipe are all things I always (well pretty much always) have to hand; lemon, eggs, sugar and butter. So I tried it. It’s really simple and it tastes like the filling and the meringue bit of a lemon meringue pie mixed together and fried in butter – which is kind of what it is except it’s much easier and quicker to make. By the way if that description didn’t grab you then this is not the breakfast for you. Try the Irish Breakfast Frittata instead. Personally I love this so much that I’m going to have to resist the urge to make it every morning.
It’s not very filling though. It’s very light. So you keep wanting to eat another lot of it later in the day. I guess that’s why some people make it as a dessert. Still this is a gorgeous breakfast. Really. Definitely making it again tomorrow.
The recipe calls for 2 dessertspoons of caster sugar. The sugar I have is very dry (I know this sounds daft but it seems important to point out anyway) so at best I can only get a level dessertspoon each time so I actually added 4 dessertspoons of sugar. And it wasn’t too sweet. It was just right.
Get your own Goldilocks.
Ingredients
- 3 large eggs, separated
- 1 lemon
- 2 dessertspoons caster sugar - taste and add more if necessary
- butter - I used normal salty butter
- a thick-based frying-pan regular size
Instructions
- Add zest and strained juice of the lemon to the egg yolks, together with the sugar, and whisk until the mixture is slightly thick and creamy.
- Now start to melt a good knob of butter on the stove top on a gentle heat in the frying pan and turn on the grill.
- Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then using a metal spoon (I actually used a plastic spatula) carefully lightly and quickly fold them into the yolks.
- Now pour the lot on to the melted butter, then fold and stir a bit to prevent anything sticking to the bottom. After about 10 seconds place the pan under the grill, (put on the second shelf not the top one, this browns very quickly), until the top is nicely browned. Serve immediately straight from the pan. I used a fish slice to plate it - give it 2 minutes to settle if you are doing this.
- If you like to make it slightly more spectacular you can warm a small ladle and pour brandy into it. Set light to the brandy, then carry your omelette to the table, pouring the lighted brandy over just before you get there. There is no way I'd ever pull this off. - And if someone approached me in the morning with a pan of fire I'd scream and throw a tea-towel over it.
