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This week, I show you how to make a really good basic omelette. I’m doing it on video because it’s quick, and it’s the sort of thing you have to see to believe. It’s also an attempt to correct some very poor omelette-making advice by the Amateur Gourmet (more commentary on this on my blog). With this technique, you get a fluffy, tender omelette with perfectly melted cheese–and you don’t have to do any fiddly flipping. In a future episode, I’ll do an audio-only version, making an omelette as part of a full meal.

(Apologies…this takes a while to load. Watch on YouTube for faster service.)

One of the keys to a good omelette is the size of the pan, as you don’t want the eggs to be too deep or too thin in the pan. I usually make a two-egg omelette (three eggs is just too much of a project) and use a 6-inch skillet. For a three-egg omelette, I’d use an 8-inch skillet.

You also want to have your cheese and any other filling prepared beforehand, and you should grate your cheese as finely as you can. I use a Microplane zester.

Contrary to the advice of the Amateur Gourmet (or, to be fair, his chef mentor in the video), you don’t want to whisk your eggs a lot. The fluffiness of the omelette comes not from whipping air into them beforehand, but in how you treat them in the pan–you want to give them high heat to set the bottom up, but ultimately not let the eggs get too hot all the way through.

After that, you just have to watch the video to see… The real key to success is knowing it’s OK to turn off the heat while the eggs are still a bit runny. When you get the hang of it, you’ll have a very satisfying addition to your kitchen repertoire.