The Flip

In my many hundreds of thousands of miles traveled to many dozens of places across half the globe, I’ve come to observe one constant: omelet chefs.

Despite the many varieties of cuisine and the many schools of culinary thought, by looking at any omelet chef one might think they had all learned at the same cooking school. They all seem to use the same pan, the same burner, the same technique of getting the liquid egg to hit the hot pan and become solid egg…

They make it look easy. Well, they ought to…isn’t it what they do all day? Of course, their most difficult job is probably in the preparation – cutting up all the omelet fixins in order to have them at their fingertips, knowing how much they need on hand for the coming feeding frenzy at whatever hotel or event they’re working.

To me, the most dazzling part of the breakfast-on-the-road ritual is The Flip. In my personal cooking experience, any time the food has left the pan during the actual cooking has meant a serious diversion from the instructions and an emergency clean-up, so to see a chef separate food from pan, to send the food flying into the air on purpose is just enough thrill for me of an early morn! And I'm not the only one; many a fellow on-the-road-omelet-eaters watching with me has made the comment, “Well, if it were me, I’d be cleaning egg off of the floor/ceiling/sink/refrigerator/dog/whatever.” But, like any professional at his or her job, they do make it look easy. Watching any number of chefs do this I’ve only ever seen one botch The Flip, and then it was only a slightly less than perfect execution. He still got it in the pan, with only a few bits of fixins bouncing over the edge of the pan and onto the floor.

More exciting than the omelet flip is the eggs-over-x flip. It’s one thing to flip eggs that have already been scrambled – you don’t have to worry about breaking the yolks. I think it takes just a little more skill to flip eggs with yolks intact and keep them that way when they return to the pan. The typical hotel omelet chef can do this without effort as well.

This morning I decided I wanted 2 eggs, fried, over-medium, which, to you non-egg-eaters, means yolks intact, flipped over so that the egg-white is cooked thoroughly on both sides, but the yolks are still liquid (for dunking the toast!), and there’s no runny, gooey, clear fluid oozing about.

The catch? I’m not on the road.

The omelet chef is me. Is I? Am. is.

I got me these non-stick skillets, one 10-inch, the other 8-inch, at Target shortly after I moved into my apartment. Following the example of The Omelet Chef I’ve seen hundreds of times, now, I set the 8-incher on the stove (though I think The Omelet Chef uses a smaller one, even), fired up the gas and threw in a pat of butter. I cracked the eggs into a bowl, and when the butter was melted and bubbling in the pan, I deposited the eggs into it.

I perhaps had the flame a little too high, the pan a little too hot, so the whites turned white pretty quickly. I swished the pan around a little just to make sure the eggs were not sticking. Since I always seem to wait too long to turn the eggs I cook, I made a conscious effort to ignore the internal admonition to wait a little while longer. I took the pan and mentally prepared myself for The Flip. I turned and held the pan over the sink (it’s great to have confidence, idnit?). I’d flipped scrambled before, but with a slightly sticky pan that was a little too big, to mixed results.

I dipped the forward edge of the pan down and, just as the eggs slid toward the edge, I lifted and leveled the pan quickly. The eggs went up about six inches and came down… exactly as they had been when they left the pan – sunny-side up. No flip.

Next attempt. Forward edge down. Come on Farrago, this is easy. Eggs slid to the edge. You can do it, boy! Pan up! Eggs up! And…

SUCCESS! I had completed The Flip, no emergency clean-up necessary, both yolks intact! Just a few more seconds back on the heat, and then I plated the eggs.

As a meal, it was so-so. I still don’t have a toaster, so I dunked cold, “raw” bread. The eggs themselves were okay – they indeed could have used a little more time on a slightly lower flame, but they looked and smelled great!

So, am I ready to tackle a cheese soufflé?

Nah. I’ll stick with flippin’ eggs for a while.