Kale, Mushroom, Goat Cheese Omelet
With Brunch and Breakfast popularly trending this week I’m inspired to a less- than- half -hour dish preparation. How about a Kale, Mushroom, Goat Cheese Omelet?
Three pretty speckled organics for today’s triple play.
Sometimes I can’t help but think to myself what a miracle food eggs are and feel so entirely grateful about it. Eggs truly serve so many uses for our sustenance, fluffy omelets, frittatas, quiche, assorted baked goods, soups, salads, scrambled up, poached or fried, even a plain old hard boiled egg.
Good omelets require creaminess, heavy cream is my favorite, but whisked in today is half and half along with a generous pinch of salt and pepper and a wee pinch of the magic spice: ground nutmeg, before sprinkling in green speckles of chopped parsley.
Whisking chopped parsley into the batter is a little trick I learned at a restaurant many years ago that sure does make an omelet look pretty.
In this case I saved half of the chopped parsley to sprinkle over the plate for a nice colorful photo, but either way makes for an appetizing, colorful dish set upon your table, and another reason to be grateful for the egg.
I’ve recently been working with a local food business in my area on some menu development, updating classics, new recipe selections and such, anyway at last weeks meeting we got to talking about massaging kale. Really. There is such a thing.
Stripping the leaves from the stem and once cut into smaller bits you literally massage the greens for just a couple moments and the process breaks down the fibers a bit making this sturdy fresh green a bit more palatable for eating. Live and Learn.
For this omelet you can just pull the leaves from the stems and drop them into some boiling salted water for a couple of minutes before draining, squeezing dry, and chopping readied for use whenever you are ready for preparing your omelet.
Mushrooms. I just love the earthy, nutty flavor of mushrooms when sear cooked.
Mushrooms are one of those vegetables that prevent me from tossing away the nonstick teflon pan because they make the searing of mushrooms so darn easy, provided that is, that you don’t overcrowd the pan, or, over grease.
Cooking mushrooms reminds me of a fairly common saying among varying grill masters, something like ‘if your looking, you ain’t cooking’ in this case meaning let your mushrooms sear a bit before even shaking the pan and turning over.
Simply sprinkle on a nice pinch of coarse kosher salt all about and this will provide something magical like assist toward sealing in the flavor and really bringing out the taste.
Contrary to what many people believe, not all restaurants prepare their omelets brunch style flipping them in the air turning them over like pizza dough readying for a hot oven.
In the case of the easy omelet, first off, preheat your broiler. You merely need to pour some melted butter (clarified is best) or some oil, enough to completely coat the bottom, into a very hot omelet pan.
With a nice little spatula, from the very moment you ladle the egg mixture into the pan, you take your spatula and stir and stir all around to cook up the egg patting the top all about making sure the egg mixture is positioned to fully cover the circle of the pan, otherwise your omelet would have a big hole when you turn it out.
Once the egg is almost cooked immediately set your fillings onto the center- cheese on top- and place under the broiler for mere seconds just to soften or melt your cheese. For the big finish, again use your spatula to loosen all around the edges of the pan then flip your omelet with the ends turned under guiding it underneath while placing onto your plate. And there you have it, bistro style, Kale, Mushroom, Goat Cheese Omelet.
Kale, Mushroom, Goat Cheese Omelet
Ingredients
- 5 kale leaves, thick center stems removed
- 3 tablespoons melted butter, clarified butter, or oil, approximately more or less
- 6-8 cremini mushrooms
- 3 eggs, lightly beaten
- 1/8 cup half and half
- good pinch coarse kosher salt
- couple grinds cracked black pepper
- small pinch ground nutmeg
- 1 1/2 -2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 3 tablespoons goat cheese, crumbled, approximately more or less
Instructions
- Pull kale leaves from ribs, drop into a small pot of boiling salted water, cook 2 minutes, drain, chop, lightly pat dry with paper toweling, set aside
- Heat medium sized nonstick pan on medium- high heat with a tablespoon or so of butter, swirl butter around to cover bottom of pan, toss mushrooms evenly across and let mushrooms sear for a little over a minute before shaking pan, sprinkle over a pinch of salt, and continue to cook mushrooms until golden browned, remove mushrooms from pan, set aside
- Preheat broiler to high
- Whisk eggs until beaten then whisk in half and half, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and parsley
- Heat a small omelet pan to very hot, add in the butter or oil
- Pour egg mixture into omelet pan and using a plastic spatula immediately begin stirring the egg all around making sure to pat down the mixture so the egg completely covers the circumference of the pan, a minute or so, turn off burner
- Immediately top the center of the omelet with the kale, mushrooms, and goat cheese crumbles, place pan into broiler until cheese is softened, less than a minute
- Remove pan from oven, use your spatula to loosen all around the edges of the pan then flip your omelet with the ends turned under guiding it underneath while placing onto your plate
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