hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with the Denver omelet that's right
I'm very excited to show you the delicious answer to a question no one's
ever asked and that would be what is the opposite of a French omelet and not only
was this omelet one of the first things I ever learned to cook professionally as
a short-order cook in high school but it's remained one of my favorite
all-time breakfasts for dinners although this time it was technically breakfast
for lunch but that's not an expression but anyway no matter when I enjoy this
it's always a treat and this is how you put it together and besides three large
farm-fresh eggs and some grated cheese what makes a Denver omelet a Denver
omelet is the following three ingredients some nice diced up smoky ham
some type of onion I'm using red but yellow will work as well scallions as
well as some kind of pepper and traditionally green bell pepper are used
for this and believe it or not those are one of the huge keys to this omelet
success and I will attempt to explain why later but for now let's go ahead and
continue on and take a fork and bust those eggs right in the yolks and we'll
proceed to beat these up but not too much okay if you over beat these they're
gonna start to get thin and watery and that's not really what we want so we're
only gonna beat these until they're just combined which point we'll stop and head
over to this stove where we will add our ham pepper onion mixture to some butter
we've melted over medium-high heat we'll also toss in a nice big pinch of
salt as well as a little touch of freshly ground black pepper
and what we'll want to do is cook this mixture for a few minutes until our
onions and peppers start to soften and our ham starts to caramelize just a bit
and exactly how long this is gonna take is gonna depend on how small you diced
your stuff but keep in mind once we pour our eggs in here this stuff is not
really gonna continue to cook any further and since I really don't want
crunchy onions and peppers in this I'm gonna make sure I go long enough so
those things soften and sweeten up so that's what I did
I cooked that stirring on medium high heat until eventually it looked like
this and then what we'll do once we've decided that's gone long enough is
reduce our heat to medium-low and we will go ahead and pour in our egg
mixture and unlike the French omelette where we do a little scramble first here
we're not going to do that we're simply going to give it a little bit
mix just enough to make sure our ingredients are distributed relatively
evenly and we'll go ahead and clean up the sides of our pan but that's it we're
basically just gonna let this sit on medium-low sort of cooking from the
bottom up until our top is still wet but not runny and while we're waiting for
that to happen we can go ahead and sprinkle over our cheese which for me
was a beautiful local white cheddar but of course any of your favorite cheese's
will work including nutritional American cheese so that's up to you you are after
all the Joan Jett of your Denver omelet and by the way if you're from Europe and
always wondered what American cheese actually was sorry we're not sure but
anyway we'll sprinkle that over and maybe also add a little shake of cayenne
to stay in shape and that's it like I said we're simply gonna wait for this to
firm up until the top still looks sort of wet but it's not really runny anymore
and we'll just monitor that with our eyes and with our spatula and by giving
it the old shake a shake it once in a while and right here it's getting close
but still a little bit wet so I gave it another minute until it looked like this
at which point I determined it was ready to fold which we will do exactly right
in half and that's it our Denver omelet is done and we can go ahead and transfer
that onto a plate and start to enjoy what is a completely different omelet
experience to the French omelet we've made before so it's like I said it
really does have a firmer texture and a lot more caramelization and then since I
am doing this as a breakfast for dinner and by dinner I mean lunch I'm gonna add
a little bit of a salad and of course some nice toasted bread and I'm gonna
grab a fork and go in for a taste and while I very much enjoy the soft
colorless French omelets once in a while I really love this as a change of pace
alright because this is firmer and much more browned the taste and texture are
completely different and not better or worse just different alright sometimes I
feel like a steak and other times I feel like a burger okay same idea here and by
the way if you're not a fan of green peppers and ever thinking I should use
some red ones because they're sweeter and more flavorful don't do it alright
one of the keys here is the way the bitterness from that green pepper brings
out the sweetness and the ham and onions so for me that's one of the things that
makes this combination of ingredients so perfect together
and another thing to remember just because this style of omelette is not
soft doesn't mean it's hard alright while much firmer this omelette is still
moist and tender and then just in case you were thinking to yourself I bet when
he turns the camera off he's gonna put ketchup on this well you know what
you're right in fact I'm gonna put some on now hey don't judge me especially if
you haven't tried it like this I mean you might be pleasantly surprised or
horrified there's only one way to find out but anyway that's it's my take on
the iconic Denver omelet made exactly how I learned back when I was 15 years
old whether you're gonna make this for
breakfast or brunch or breakfast for dinner
for lunch I really do hope you give this a try soon so head over to food wishes
comm for all the ingredient amounts of more info as usual and as always enjoy
you