chicken omelet, compound butter

Omelette de poulet, très chic. Egg curd heated up over moderate heat in the compound butter prepared for insertion under the skin of the turkey and chicken shown in that earlier comparison post down there ↓ . No sauce, except for more of the melted compound butter and a squirt of lemon. The lemon was just sitting there so I thought, "you know, I could use you," made all the difference.

Technique: Gently blend two large or three ordinary eggs into a bowl and break the yolks into the whites with a fork. Do not over beat them, do not homogenize the mixture. Prepare the filling if you intend one. Grate the cheese, fry the sausage, mushrooms, whatever. Arrange these ingredients mise en place along with the bowl of beaten egg. Also have a plate ready. Over moderate heat, and by moderate I mean low, allow the butter to melt until it foams. Dump the egg mixture all at once. If the eggs were refrigerated, and being American eggs they probably were refrigerated, they'll cool down the pan even more on contact. Stand there and observe the eggs begin to set. Using a fork, gently push the set curd from the edges toward the center of the pan and allow liquid egg to run into the vacated space. Tilt the pan if necessary, or give the liquid an encouraging nudge with the fork. Work around the edges of the pan like the face of a clock or perhaps a compass. In this manner, build up the bulk of the curd in the center of the pan leaving the edges flat. See what you're doing here? Fluff fluff fluff, that's what you're doing. As you notice the curd NEARLY fully set, BUT NOT YET FULLY SET, remove the pan from the heat and add a small amount of cheese or herb, or whatever you intend for the center. (The original omelets have no filling but we're Americans here I'm supposing and we do as we please, and if empty omelets are proper then I don't want to be right). This whole process should take no longer than two minutes. Use a flexible spatula to loosen the edges from the pan, tilting the pan, tap the whole thing toward the edge and roll it onto a plate. Tidy up the edges, tuck them in to make it appear as if you knew what you were doing. There's another technique over high heat that is furious and fast, which involves violently shaking the pan to jolt the curd in the desired direction, but that is so immature et très déclassé.

I have noticed my sauces becoming more and more simple and also thinner. I do not have an explanation for this development except possibly maturité! This sauce, herbed butter and lemon, is positively perfect for the thing it is dressing, and I hereby declare that I shall henceforth use this forevermore. Or at least keep it in mind.

The pan shown is 1/2 turkey and 1/2 chicken pulled from the finished birds the previous night and resting in its own fatty liquid, now congealed, in the hope of salvaging the turkey which is rather dry. Ok, it's possibly 2/3 turkey and 1/3 chicken but I don't really know for sure, I didn't weigh it. OK, FINE! Let's say, 3/5 turkey and 2/5 chicken. What do I, look like a Math major over here?