As with many good things, a cherished recipe resulted from an accident.
My wife wanted an omelet for breakfast and we had only one egg in the refrigerator. That egg was an especially good, farmers' market egg, but it did not have a companion and my wife was used to having a two-egg omelet.
Many solutions came to mind.
Go to the market to buy more. That seemed like too much trouble with a cup of coffee already brewed and waiting on the dining room table next to the Sunday New York Times. Use a lot of milk as "filler." But the resulting omelet would have been more like a custard than what my wife likes, a very firm cooked egg.
So, I did the only thing any guy would do in the circumstances. I punted.
If I was short an egg, well, I'd compensate with a lot more filling, hoping my wife would be distracted by all the goodies so she wouldn't notice the paucity of "egg."
Her favorite filling consisted of sautéed spinach, shiitake mushrooms, shallots and Comte cheese. Low and behold, as my mother would have said, what appeared to be a limitation became an asset.
Using one egg created an omelet that shared many qualities with the French crepe. The omelet was thin, crispy along the edges and, most importantly, had traded bulk for flavor.
Voila!
My wife loved her one-egg omelet so much, the dish is now a standard feature of our Sunday morning brunch. For Zesterdaily I wrote up the recipe and a more complete description.
Please take a look and let me know what you think: Eggsellent - A One-Egg Omelet That's All About Flavor.
David Latt is an Emmy-award winning television producer who turns to cooking to alleviate stress. He shares his experiences with food and his favorite recipes on his blog Men Who Like To Cook.