Egg omelette is a world popular breakfast dish made with well beaten seasoned eggs, cooked quickly in oil or butter in a frying pan. The omelette may sometimes contain meat, cheese, herbs, or vegetables, or combination of two or more to make the dish more filling and scrumptious. Egg based omelette is mostly consumed for breakfast, but it may also be consumed as a side dish with rice or noodles.

History

It is believed that egg omelette first originated in Ancient Near East, where it was mixed with seasonings and chopped herbs, fried, and then served after being sliced in the form of wedges. Thereafter, the popularity of the dish spread over to Middle East, North Africa, Western Europe, and to various other parts of the world, with each and every country having its own egg omelette recipe.  

Preparation Overview

The egg based omelette can be prepared in a very easy manner with minimum effort. The basic egg omelette recipe suggests frying a well beaten mix of eggs, salt, and pepper in a frying pan in little amount of oil, and then serving it hot with bread loaves. The omelette is turned over once during the process of frying to cook it from both sides. Well chopped onions, tomatoes, green chillies, and coriander leaves are often added to beaten eggs before making the omelette. Cheese and ham can also be used as the ingredients of egg based omelette. In order to make fluffy and light omelette, egg whites or whole eggs are beaten with little amount of cream, milk, or water. At times, a pinch of baking powder is added to make the omelette fluffier.

Variations

Here are a few regional variations of egg omelette:

• Iranian omelette- in Iran, the omelette is made up of eggs, tomatoes, and pepper.
• Chinese omelette- egg and oysters are used to prepare omelette in China.
• Western omelette- it is made up of eggs, onions, green bell peppers, and ham, often having cheese topping, and served along with fried potatoes or hash browns.
• French omelette- clarified butter, in large amount, is used to prepare French omelette. The butter is used in large amount to prevent the omelette from sticking to pan. Chopped onions, tomatoes, and herbs like thyme and rosemary are commonly used to prepare French omelette.
• Indian omelette- Indian omelette is popularly known as masala omelette and is usually made with chopped onions, chopped green chilies, chopped coriander leaves, salt, pepper, cumin powder, a pinch of turmeric powder, and eggs.

Nutrition

Egg omelette made of one large sized egg provides around 93 calories, obtained from 7.33 g of fat, 217 mg of cholesterol, 98 mg of sodium, 70 mg of potassium, 0.42 g of carbohydrate, and 6.48 g of protein.  The calories in the omelette can be reduced, if it is cooked in non stick frying pan, and spray oil is used in place of butter or any vegetable oil.