- French omelet. Simple, right? Two words, three ingredients. How hard could it be? You take some eggs, you beat 'em up, you put 'em in a pan, you
kind of do a foldy thing, you tap a little bit,
and bob's your uncle. You flip it over and boom, you got yourself a French delicacy before you can say French delicacy. But it's one of the more difficult things to try and cook, especially
for the first time. It takes temperature control and subtlety, and egg control, and
just a working knowledge of number of kitchen concepts. So I wanna show you all
the ways that it's possible to screw it up and then
show you how to do it right. Sounds like a show to me. (dramatic music) This episode is very much
sponsored by Danish Creamery. Mistakes have always been an
important part of this channel, and over the years, they've
taught me most of what I know. When it comes to French omelets, high quality butter is essential, both to rescue and to elevate. With the help of Danish Creamery
European unsalted butter, we can create eggs worth savoring, thanks to the nutritious
high quality cream of California cows. So let's start screwing up,
learning from our mistakes, and enjoying some premium
European style butter while we do it. (dramatic music) So, your omelet's a little dry looking. It's a little pockmarked. It's maybe a little cracked. What went wrong here? Stupid idiot. No. Well, that is dumb. Where'd I go wrong? This guy was made without butter. Not using any fat in the pan, even in a non-stick pan, it's gonna be hard to get out of there. So it's gonna be harder to shape. And, as you can see, it's just
like flat and dry looking. It's a little cracked. It's pockmarked, it's just dull. How do you fix this? Well, the thing that would've saved it is high quality California
cow Danish Creamery butter. You need fat to make it a good omelet. You just do. And butter is the finest
fat in all the land for making eggs. (dramatic music) - [Brad] So how are you
screwing up this time, Andrew? - I'm gonna use this stainless steel pan, like a real jagweed. It is possible to make a French omelet
in a stainless steel pan, but I cannot, nor would I recommend it. Kendall inform me sometimes at
very high end cooking schools it's a challenge. Can you make a French omelet
in a stainless steel pan? It involves super heating it and basically seasoning
it almost like cast iron. So it has a naturally non-stick surface, because here's the problem
with stainless steel. The grain that you see
when you look at stainless, you see there's a grain. Show 'em some stainless steel. You see that is grain. When metal heats and cools, it expands and contracts, and all those grooves basically
get wider and smaller, and they grab onto your food. Just don't do it. It's just science, whatever. Science, who cares? Oh my god, it's not sticking. The pan is just too good. It's just too high quality, a triply stainless steel pan. - [Kendall] Or it's the great butter. - Or it's the great butter. Either way, if you turn it into the badass culinary universe, you're getting good products. No, that didn't, that didn't pan out. But this did 'cause of the pan. Oh, okay. No, we're sticking. Okay. Alright. Whew. Really pulled our eggs
out of the egg place. Oh geez. Oh geez, Louise. Oh, Jiminy Willikers. Oh, Christmas in Connecticut. Oh, oh, oh, no. Oh, dear, dear sweet God. Oh, my wife's gonna leave
me when she sees this. Why? (dramatic music) So your omelet looks like this. Not terrible. It's okay shape, but the real problem lies inside. If we look at the middle, we're dealing with little more than a roll of scrambled eggs. There's absolutely no goo factor here. It's just solid set curds
rolled like a jelly roll. Why'd that happen? Really it comes down to heat control. Hear that sizzle? You don't want to hear that. And then if the heat is
too high, as you can see, curds start to form very, very quickly. Now you can still overcook
an omelet over low heat. It's just a matter of cooking it too long. Either way, you're setting the curds completely before rolling. And just to kind of overemphasize that, obviously you never do this, but trying to illustrate a point, okay? And I'm too good at it to
do it just by accident, which is not only gonna cause tearage, but it's also gonna create, basically, just rolled scrambled
eggs, which are worth as much as the hot sauce that you put on, 'cause that's the only
thing that's gonna save him. Even Danish Creamery can't save this. It's just, well, it'd still be good, but you know what I mean. (dramatic music) Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch. Ah, (beep) I mean, fricker, fricker. Doesn't look bad, right? All good, right? Right? I'm asking. - [Brad] Yep, sure. - Not. It looks pretty
inoffensive on the outside. The outside of a French
omelet is supposed to be nice, sort of just flat, pale yellow, but its inside holds a much filth here. Dirtier secret. That is too gooey. You can see that there is liquid, practically uncooked egg coming out. This is very, very close
to being done properly, but it was rolled just shy where the curd wasn't quite set, it was still flowing around a little bit. So you gotta be careful
with your heat control and you gotta be careful
not to jump the gun. Sometimes, if you've especially overcooked a couple in a row, you're gonna overcompensate
and end up undercooking, which frankly just as frustrating. I'm so frustrated. (dramatic music) It does look like an
alien placenta, Kendall, you're right. And aliens eat their placentas, so, therefore, it is alien food. Ugh. So your omelet
ended up kind of streaky, and I have a feeling on the inside it's only gonna get worse. Let's take a look. Oh, oh, the humanity. Oh, the chickanity. Oh, so what happened here? I don't care. That's probably good enough. Yeah, I mean, come on. It's a big deal. Just eggs. It's just fricking eggs. It's just eggs. Underbeaten eggs. You really, really need to
beat your eggs thoroughly, super incorporating
the yolk and the white, because they cook at
different temperatures, and they cook up different colors. You know, they're egg white and egg yolk. You've seen egg white and egg yolks, presumably, if you've even
watched the first couple minutes of this video, we don't
have to break into that. Look, you can clearly see
the streaks of egg white. If the white is undercooked, your breakfast guests will run screaming, they'll call hazmat and the CDC on you. And you'll have to give up your kids. So make sure you really, you really beat your eggs. (dramatic music) - [Brad] How are you gonna mess these up? - Well, Brad, today I'm
gonna overwhip these eggs using a hand blender. Oh, Jesus. So, okay. Yeah. I mean, these are comically over whipped, but I have seen people beat their eggs using a hand mixer, so it's well within the
realm of possibility. Okay. What? - [Brad] It just looks so funny. - It's fine. It is gonna be fine. Look, that's delicious. What if this is like a
great American discovery, French eggheads, try and tell me, hey, invent an omelet? Try that in a Denny's. Try that in small Denny's. See how far you can make it there. Well, I don't think this is
within the realm of possibility for most folks, but glad we're
illustrating it, kind of. What, Brad? It's fine, everything's fine, Perhaps a bit cartoonish. But, as they say, the best
lessons in life are cartoons. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. So your omelet looks like this. It's covered in holes. And why did this happen? You can beat too much air into the eggs, and as a result, the omelet has a destroyed texture from being overbeat. So you can overbeat if
you really, really try. So don't, just don't try to overbeat it. It's the easiest advice in the world. Just don't try to do that on purpose. (dramatic music) What was I doing? - [Brad] Uhh, ruining eggs. - Oh yeah, okay. How do I do that? I don't even know. So what I'm doing here is I'm making too many eggs in too small pan. And the problem that.. you're gonna run into a
couple problems there. First, you kind of have
to overcook the eggs, 'cause in order to get all the curd set, like you basically just need to cook it for such a long time. It's very, very hard to
get it done properly. But also, shaping's
gonna be right old dough, it's very, very hard to
achieve the correct texture when it's this thick and
you're trying to cook this many eggs. It's possible, I'm gonna see
if I can still pull it off, but I am trying to
demonstrate something wrong. So maybe I shouldn't do that. It doesn't look bad. Yeah, still it's more
about the difficulties. I know what I'm doing. Okay? Like, I really know what I'm doing. So I was able to pull this off. But you, you don't know what you're doing. What about the inside? How do we do for doneness? Well, it's pretty good, but the problem is, see, you see those giant curds that form there. Like I had to use too
much heat for too long because I used too small pan. You need to make sure that you use the right ratio of eggs to pan. Personally, I would probably
go three to four eggs for an eight inch pan. Four to five eggs for a 10 inch pan, five to seven eggs for a 12 inch pan. - [Brad] What about a 60 inch pan? - What are you looking
for with that, Brad? What do you want me to do with that? - [Brad] I wanna see your math. - It's five times, five times seven, or five times five to seven,
which is 25 to 28, 7 times. No, seven times five 40. What? What's seven times five? 35. Jesus, what's wrong with me? Alright, so for a 60 inch pan, Brad, you'd use anywhere from 25 to 35 eggs. If you run into that problem, call me. (bright music) My omelet's too skinny, said the boy. Ha ha ha ha, said the wise and old man, you simply used too small
a pan with too few... No, too big a pan, darn it. Can't even see it over the rim of the pan. Where'd the food go? There it is. Where'd it go? I don't have object permanence. There it is. So this is the other end of the spectrum. Too few eggs and too big a pan. And what ends up happening is you end up with a real thin pancake of scrambled eggs that you just roll up into a roll. But also, as you can see, because it was so darn
thin, I was simply unable to generate a nice soft curd inside. And there's little to
no point in doing that, unless that's what you're into. I'm not gonna yuck your yum. It's not very yummy though. (dramatic music) Ugh. God, that's like somehow the
grossest one, it's very penile. So yeah, it looks like a schlump. How'd this happen? Come on, come on. We're taking it too serious. It's a French omelet. What's a big deal? You gotta move it. Probably don't, I probably don't need to move around that much. It's probably fine. Ow. By not keeping the eggs moving, what we ended up with was huge curds. So when you're making a French omelet, you want to keep the
eggs moving constantly, either with, you know, some
chopsticks or a little spatula. You just want to agitate
them as much as you can, so that you form very, very small curds that's gonna give you a creamy interior, the inside of your omelet. By not keeping them moving, not only did it make the
omelet more prone to tearing when we started folding it, but also you just end up
with just straight up, just cooked eggs in a roll. So keep the eggs moving at all times until the curds start to set. More on that later. Is this on? (dramatic music) Can you tell me what's wrong
with this French omelet? - [Children] No. - Western omelet, what? What's that? - [Children] I think
Dad is the worst, Mom. - And just like cacophony,
I know you can't do it, but just, like, just picture
a cacophony of children all trying to simultaneously
give a sentence long answer to that question. Just like stumbling over each other. Just imagine that and just
pretend that we did it, because it would be a funny bit. - [Brad] We did it though. - Oh, cool. What's the problem with
this French omelet? Well, it's a American Western
omelet, that's the problem. You don't wanna put a whole
bunch of cheese, ham, peppers, and onions in there, but also you don't simply
fold over a French omelet. It's a different presentation. It's a different style,
it's a different shape. And typically, you don't
stuff it with a whole bunch of stuff the way you
do an American omelet. Is this more delicious and
frankly better to look at? Yes. Hmm. So yeah, if you
find yourself, you know, blacking out in front of
the stove and you wake up and there's a Western
omelet in front of you, you took a wrong turn at Western omelet. This was Brad's idea. (dramatic music) - [Brad] Could you really
load one up for me, Andrew? - Load one up for you, Brad? I'm gonna load one up for you, Brad. Apparently the correct time
to stuff a French omelet to put ingredients in
there is right at the end after you've done a partial roll, you sort of stuff the stuffings in there and then you fold it over
itself, business as usual. Ow, ow. But it's so hard to fold over it, Jesus. And invert. Ow, my finger. And there you have it. That's a not unhandsome looking omelet, but when we hop inside, we're in for a rather unpleasant surprise. Oh, oh no. Oh, no. Overstuffing an omelet not
only makes it harder to fold, it also, if you put too much
cheese in there, in particular, it's not going to melt
all the way through. Omelets cook very, very quickly, and whatever stuffings you're
put in there in the end have to be very spare. And also, if it's cheese, you gotta put just a little bit in there, so it has time and the ability to melt. There's not enough heat to
melt a whole lot of cheese. Plus a super cheesy French omelet is kind of putting a hat on a hat, 'cause it's already very
gooey and flowy on the inside, so adding cheese is just supposed to be a little augmentation, not a central theme of the omelet, 'cause again, this is not America, this is France, things are done. I don't know how they're done in France. How do they do things in France? - [Kendall] With reason? - Within reason. (bright music) Now we've covered most
of the technical misfits you can run into, and now it's time for the big bad one. Shaping. Shaping has got to be the hardest part of making a French omelet. It requires precision,
patience, kindness, piety, because you can tear
it, you can, you know, sort of make it the wrong shape. You can fold it too early, too late. You can just, there's a number
of things that can go wrong. (dramatic music) So yeah, continuing to roll
it all the way to the end can cause an issue. Then you don't have a seam on
the bottom, it's on the side, so it's gonna be harder to hide. Hmm. Oh, seam's out. Now this omelet is not dead on arrival. We can fix it. That's one of the
beauties of French omelets is that if you didn't get
it just right in the pan, you can always reshape it after the fact. It's gonna be a little
painful, but it's your fault. So it's the penance you pay. Ow, it is sort of roll it over, so that the seam is on the bottom, and just kind of tuck in the ends, so it comes to a taper on each side. It should look like a little torpedo. So yeah, shaping can be problematic, but it can be revised after the fact. So if you've got a bad
roll going, don't worry. You don't need to nuke the whole omelet. You can fix it in post, kinda
like we do all the time. Everything I say, these lines, I didn't say these on the day. This is all ADR. This is what my real voice sounds like. (bright music) Okay. Ripping and the tearing. Here we go. Ripping and the tearing. It's easy to fold the French omelet. Just, you just kind of, oh shoot. Oh, see what happens? See this? Look at this disaster. Look what's befalling me? Ah, oh, ah. When you're folding the
omelet, you want to fold it slowly and gradually along the edge. Just keep moving as though
you're, I don't know, you're rolling up a,
wait, what do you roll up? What do you roll? You roll stuff. A rug. - [Brad] With a body in it? - So you wanna roll
gradually along the seam. And if you keep the eggs moving,
you'll have smaller curds, which will make it easier
to fold, if you make sure to wipe around the
outside of the pan often, that'll prevent thin,
hard curds from forming, which can contribute to the
ripping and the tearing. (spatula drumming) (bright music) So, enough mistakes. How do we make the perfect French omelet? First, I'm gonna crack five
eggs perfectly with one hand and not gonna get any shell in there, calling it. Already got shell in there. Let's try that again. Little more force. Oh my God, come on. There, what's happening right now? Oh, last one was perfect. If the last one's perfect,
that's all that matters. So to make as homogenous
a egg mixture as possible, we want to beat these really thoroughly. It's a good start. But if we pass them
through a fine mesh sieve, not only are we gonna have
a more homogenous mixture, we're also going to rip the
eggs of their chi zi zel? - [Kendall] Chalaza. - Whatever it is, we're getting rid of it, because it can be detrimental
to your omelet's texture. Yeah, and that is a homogenous mixture. Let's head over to the
stove top, we're ready. High quality butter. Danish Creamery butter, about a tablespoon's worth. I have been beating these
around with chopsticks, and that is a handsome option, but one of my more favorite ways to do it is with one of these
little rubber spatulas, because this gives you the ability to sweep around the outside
and get the curd off the outside of the pan, which can be something that
ruins your omelet's texture. You definitely can use chopsticks. Don't use anything metal. Get it moving as soon as you can. And as soon as you see
curd forming on the outside like that, get it in. We're starting on medium heat. This is the temperature at
which you want to sort of set the curd. Then, once you've got it to
the point where it's done and ready to roll, we're
gonna lower the heat to low, so that it continues
cooking and stays hot, but also does not brown
and doesn't overcook. - [Brad] You really
know what you're doing. - Oh, I don't. I'm
making all this up, dude. Everybody's just faking
it till they make it. That's what they don't tell you, except the folks at Danish Creamery. - [Brad] All right,
see, this is right about where we wanna stop. - As soon as you're starting to see the bottom of the pan like that, we have a curd that's ready to finalize. See, when I turn it like
that, it's not running at all. That means that it's pretty ready to go. By the time it's rolled,
it'll be cooked just right. Now I'm gonna switch to a big spatula, just 'cause it can be a
little easier to roll with. Boop, boop, boop. I said boop. - [Brad] Is that part of the technique? - Yes. You see how smooth
and even the egg is. We want to run this around the bottom to loosen up the edge there. And then that's when we want
to bring this side over, over, over. There we go. Kill the heat. Okay, now it looks pretty boring, and if you sprinkle chives on there, they're just gonna bounce off, like it's got a force
field there or something. What you need is some high quality butter. 'cause that is both
gonna give it some sheen, and it's going to make
your toppings stick. I mean, that's gonna taste
great too, obviously. Chives, little freshly cracked pepper and some nice flaky finishing salt. There you have it folks. The perfect french omelet. Let's see if I did my job correctly. As you can see, the interior
is set, but nice and gooey. You've got basically soft
scrambled eggs in there. It's a very special, luxuriant
thing to start the day with. Hmm, perfect. That's a wonderful expression of eggs. Go out there, give it a shot for yourself, tell me how it goes and come back anytime you wanna see me screw things up. - [Brad] Weird. You nailed that outro. - I had to get something right today. - [Narrator] Thanks again to
our sponsor, Danish Creamery, for bringing you this
episode of Botch by Babish. If you're looking for
a kitchen game changer, consider Danish Creamery butter. (bright music)
