Omelette Ludo Lefebvre

With Black Pepper Boursin . . . “Oh, la vache!”

“Du pain, du vin, du Boursin” — goes the classic strapline

To keep up momentum following today’s update a return to the roots of this blog — some talk about health, food and a recipe.

The latest Observer Food Monthly collaboration (link here) with Dara included some CardioKit recipes and as per usual it’s impossible not to read the online commentary, both positive and negative. What’s clear is that writing about food and health is always an emotive subject. In fact the latest article was motivated by taking on board comments from a previous OFM article, where a number of people had questioned whether a healthy diet was compatible with a restricted budget. For this reason our article focused on how healthy eating had become a “rip-off”, associated with ‘special’ and expensive ingredients.

The article was titled “Eat well for less” but again some commented that our ingredients weren’t really budget enough. Now our intention was never to emulate Jack Monroe style recipes but to look at this from an angle where health has become associated with premium and special “superfoods”. One commenter even suggested that our recipes were too elaborate and complicated — “too many ingredients, all you need are a few eggs”.

This brings us to the Omelette Ludo Lefebvre. Ludo is what I would describe as a charismatic, eccentric “rock & roll” chef. He is French and classically trained on the Michelin circuit in France but based in Los Angeles these days and cooks modern popular culture food including the famous “Ludo Bird” fried chicken sandwich. This is his omelette.

And now to the subject of health. I don’t think we can claim that the combination of eggs, butter and cheese, on their own, makes a specifically protective meal. However, we shouldn’t fear these ingredients either, especially not when you consider what they would usually be replaced with. The foundation of healthy food is cooking and eating real food. The ability to cook eggs is probably the fundamental culinary skill and a beautiful illustration of the relationship between simple ingredients and quality meals. This was the misunderstanding of the historical “French Paradox” — the French as a population understand this better than most. They would eat real, local food that contained full fat diary and eggs but had some of the lowest rates of heart disease as compared to populations that would focus on egg white omelettes cooked in margarine or other strange pseudo-healthy (and often premium) food industry substitutions. Here is the point — have a 3 egg omelette as a weekend brunch with a side salad of dressed green leaves and you will feel full and satisfied. Much better than a processed breakfast cereal or toast with margarine.

Ingredients:

For a 2 person Omelette we use —

• 5 organic eggs
• Quality butter (we use Yeo Valley)
• Black Pepper Boursin cheese crumbled for a melting centre
• Salt and white pepper to season (we have used black as that’s what we had)
• Chopped chives

Method:

1. The technique of cooking a good Omelette is a fundamental skills for any cook. The key for us is a good thick based non-stick pan and a a silicone spatula (usually used for baking).
2. Break the eggs into a bowl and whisk with a fork for at least 30 seconds until a uniform yellow without any separate white or yolk. Season with Salt and Pepper.
3. Heat the pan over a medium heat with a knob of butter until it melts and foams a little. The key is gentle cooking without colour.
4. Pour in the eggs and as the edges start to set pull back into the centre of the omelette to produce ribbons (a bit like gentle scrambled egg). Continue until the outer parts of the omelette generally look cooked but the centre is still runny and oozing.
5. Crumb some Boursin into the centre of the omelette and then tip the pan whilst folding over the omelette on itself to make a basic roll (closing the melting centre on itself). Dot a little extra butter on the underside and run along the top of the omelette to make it ‘shinny’ (it’s the little touches that distinguish an OK omelette from a great omelette).
6. You can turn the heat right down and allow the omelette to heat for another minute or so without colouring and then tip the pan and allow the omelette to roll out with a little encouragement from the spatula onto a plate. Dress the top with a sprinkle of chive.

If you have it right, the outside of the omelette should be cooked with little colour (in fact in the picture we have more browning than usual) but the middle should be oozing and soft — delicious.