Sydney’s French Omelette

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In Season 2 of The Bear, Sydney makes an omelette for Sugar, her coworker. Sugar is hungry, and Sydney feeds her, creating a simple meal with love and attention to detail. One bite of the omelette and Sugar declares, about to cry, “This is so delicious I want to hug you.” The trouble is always worth it. Watching Sydney prepare the meal is one of the finest scenes of food-related television I have ever watched, and it puts hospitality front and center.

The dish Sydney cooks is a spin on a French omelette, filled with Boursin, finished with a swipe of butter, topped with fresh chives and a flurry of crushed potato chips. The scene is about the magic that happens when we are hungry and someone feeds us a delicious meal created with love.

I could write a thesis about The Bear and the deep places it touches in me, but not today. Today I want to share the recipe I created for Sydney’s French Omelette so that you can make it at home and feed yourself or someone you love. I also want to share with you the resources I used to learn how to prepare a French omelette.

Lately, I have made Sydney’s omelette part of my Friday night routine. It is so simple to throw together, and it tastes like heaven on a plate. I pair it with a glass of champagne and enjoy it in my pajamas, but you can decide your own way to savor every delicious bite.

French omelettes are different from American omelettes in two primary ways. First, they are very thin, and they cook very quickly. American omelettes tend to be thick and fluffy, stuffed with toppings and add-ins, but a French omelette is thin and elegant. The secret is in the technique (see below).

The second difference is the toppings. American omelettes include a bevy of options, but the French version traditionally only includes eggs, butter, and perhaps some cheese, but not always. The point of a French omelette is to highlight the creamy, perfectly cooked eggs without any distraction from other ingredients. Obviously this version is amped up with a few ingredients, but the essence is still very simple, allowing the perfectly cooked eggs to shine.

I found two videos that do an excellent job showing the technique for making a French omelette.

The first is a video featuring French Chef Jacque Pepin…

…and the second features my favorite and yours, Alison Roman:

I think both videos are helpful, and together they show different aspects of the technique. Jacque’s video is more traditional, but Alison’s is, in my opinion, more educational. Alison’s method also more closely mimics the technique used by Sydney in The Bear. As you will see, the process it is very fast, and requires your ingredients to be ready, your burner to be heated, and your pan perfectly proportioned.

Eventually, to learn to make an omelette, you are going to have to dive in and give it a shot. The more you make omelettes, the better you will get! I hope this recipe brings as much joy to your kitchen as it has to mine.