A Travel Hint and a recipe - Airline omelettes and a lesson from MIDNIGHT DINER

Kaoru Kobayashi as the chef in Midnight Diner

When travelling, at least when travelling in your old age when you can afford smart hotels with giant buffets, airline lounges, indeed airline travel, my advice is never choose or accept anything which is described as an omelette.

You will find something shaped like an omelette, even coloured like an omelette, basically yellow, but it never tastes like an omelette should - a slightly firm exterior and an interior that is slightly, just on the edge of liquid. 

Omelettes that have gone through the hell of preparation for a buffet or a heated (re-heated?) airline breakfast, taste nothing like that. They are hard and unyielding of any flavour to savour.

The best omelette I have tasted, and I dont profess to have tasted every possible method or combination, was first demonstrated at the end of an episode of Midnight Diner when the chef simply about an ounce of butter into a medium heat frying pan with a flat bottom about eight inches wide and steeply curved sides. When the butter had melted he simply broke two eggs onto the butter and stirred vigorously with a table fork for about twenty seconds before  turning one side over onto the other with a spatula and after about another twenty seconds flipping it over again. Some tiny shade of brown appeared on the ridge. it was ready. 

If you want add cheese, smoked salmon or diced chicken add it just before you use the spatula.