Just whisk some eggs, melt some butter, and Bob’s your omelette-making uncle, right? Actually, it really is as simple as that. But then you have to cook them.

As with many things in the kitchen, sometimes simplifying a recipe is the wisest route and brings out the best in a dish. For me, omelettes fit into this category.

There are various ways of making an omelette. Some people cook them in oil, some add milk, some add baking powder, and others add both of those.

For me, adding milk turns the egg, well, milky. Adding baking powder alters the flavour to something I don’t enjoy. And it absolutely has to be cooked in butter.

So that’s all I use to cook an omelette: eggs, butter, and seasoning. This does not of course count any fillings such as cooked mushrooms, cheese, tomatoes, salmon or anything else you fancy in your omelette; but the basic structure of the omelette, for me, has only eggs and seasoning, and is cooked in butter.

This does mean your omelette may be less fluffy than some, but you can get a good deal of fluffiness in it simply by vigorous whisking to incorporate plenty of air. And if the cost of that fluffiness created by baking powder is the loss of the dish’s intrinsic flavour (and that’s egg), well, I’m happy to leave it out.

In the below recipe for simple omelettes with a delicious centre, I’ll share my uncomplicated way with this breakfast classic.

Per 1 omelette:

Ingredients

3 jumbo eggs

2 generous Tbsp butter

Salt and cracked black pepper to taste

50 g Gorgonzola cheese

1 Tbsp garlic chives

1 spring onion, finely diced

Method

Have any filling ingredients ready (portion out the Gorgonzola on a board, chop the chives and portion them too, so that you can grab them and add to the omelette when you need to).

Break the eggs into a bowl.

Put a smallish non-stick frying pan on a moderate heat (neither scalding hot nor too timid) and add butter.

Whisk the eggs by hand as though your very life depended on it. There are barbarians beating down the back door and they’re coming in to get you if the eggs are not beaten well.

When the butter is bubbling merrily but not yet burning, pour the beaten eggs into the pan while still whisking (seriously, I whisk them with my right hand while they’re sliding in, to get as much air in as possible till the very last moment).

Let the omelette settle and cook for about a minute, while tilting the pan this way and that and simultaneously using a metal spatula to pull the egg away from the edges at different points around the pan. This allows the runny egg to move to the bottom and the whole omelette to cook evenly.

Turn the heat down a little. When about two thirds of the egg at the bottom is cooked, add the filling ingredients on top and use the spatula to fold the omelette in half.

Cook for about a minute more but don’t overcook them. I like an omelette that is a tiny bit runny in the middle. More than that and the egg risks becoming kind of squeaky. You don’t want that. Season with salt and cracked black pepper. Clean the pan under very hot running water and wipe dry with paper towel before adding butter to make the next omelette. DM/TGIFood

Tony Jackman is Galliova Food Champion 2021. His book, foodSTUFF, is available in the DM Shop. Buy it here. 

Mervyn Gers Ceramics supplies dinnerware for the styling of some TGIFood shoots. For more information, click here.

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks. Share your versions of his recipes with him on Instagram and he’ll see them and respond.

SUBSCRIBE to TGIFood here. Also visit the TGIFood platform, a repository of all of our food writing.