Lekker Brekker Monday: Cheese and onion, the perfect match for a perfect omelette

You can put almost as many things inside an omelette as there are available ingredients, but for my taste, nothing beats cheese and onion.

But I don’t mean raw onion. If I order onions in a filling (of anything) in a restaurant and it’s been put into it raw, it tells me that the chef lacks imagination, or couldn’t be bothered, or worse, just doesn’t care. A Jobsworth, who just wants to get the shift over and go home.

I feel the same about tomatoes, generally, though there are times when raw tomato is just right. In a hamburger for instance. But if tomato is on my breakfast plate, I need it to be grilled or fried.

The same applies to mushrooms. Someone put raw mushrooms on my pizza last week (mushroom wasn’t even listed on the menu for that pizza choice), and it ruined what was otherwise a very nice topping. I never order mushrooms on pizza. A raw mushroom has nothing to recommend it; it needs to be cooked down, to release its juices, and needs seasoning and lemon, or soy, or something. It needs effort.

But back to onions: for an omelette filling, I cook them in oil or butter, or both, gently until they slowly turn golden. When they’re beautifully caramelised, they’re ready to work their charms alongside the cheese.

For the cheese, I prefer mature Cheddar, because it makes a firm counterpoint to the sweet caramelisation of the onion.

And for the eggs, as you may know by now, I have firm and clear feelings about the eggs in an omelette. No bicarb. No milk. Only eggs, and three of them. Jumbo. And only butter, nicely foaming.

The onions need to be cooked first, the cheese has to be grated. As for quantities, be generous. I never weigh or in any way “count” the cheese, who has time for that…? I just grate a nice big pile for each omelette, so two piles for two, in our case.

An omelette for me is simple and quick: melt butter until foaming, whisk eggs, pour the beaten eggs in quickly. Further details follow in the method.

Tony’s cheese and onion omelette

(Serves 2)

Ingredients

6 jumbo eggs (3 per omelette)

6 Tbsp butter (3 per omelette)

2 Tbsp butter for cooking the onion

1 large white onion, sliced thinly

1 cup Cheddar cheese, grated (½ cup per omelette)

Salt and black pepper to taste

Method

Slice the onion and cook it in a little butter until softened and then continue to let it take on colour until golden.

Grate the Cheddar cheese and divide it into two piles on a plate or board. Divide the onion into portions too. This makes it easier and quicker to add an even quantity to each omelette while cooking.

Have all of the above ready, next to the stove, and a medium-sized frying pan, preferably non-stick. You need to work on a moderately high flame; neither so intense as to burn the butter, nor so insipid as to not cook the eggs fast enough. An omelette needs balance.

One omelette at a time, break three eggs into a bowl.

Melt 3 Tbsp butter and, when it is foaming, whisk the eggs vigorously and pour them in while still whisking. Turn the heat down a little. Tilt the pan left and right, fore and back, for the egg to run around, while using a spatula in your other hand to pull the egg in from the sides while the raw eggs pour to the part you’ve just cleared. Keep doing this only until the egg is nearly set.

Turn the heat down low and spoon one portion of the Cheddar onto one half of the omelette, then the onion on top of the cheese (this gives the cheese more time to start melting).

Let it cook on a gentle heat for a few minutes or the cheese to melt from below.

With the spatula, turn the other half of the omelette over on the side where the filling is, to make a half-moon, and give it another minute or so of cooking.

Slide carefully onto a plate, grind some black pepper over and add a sprinkling of salt, and get on with the next omelette. The etiquette, in this instance, is for the first person served to start eating right away. DM

Tony Jackman is Galliova Food Writer 2023, jointly with TGIFood columnist Anna Trapido. Order his book, foodSTUFF, here

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks.

This dish is photographed on a plate by Mervyn Gers Ceramics.