Classic French Omelette

Beat the eggs with a fork for 20-30 seconds, until the yolks and whites are one even colour and no thick ribbons of white are left in the bowl.

Stir in the fine salt.

Salt them now rather than at the end. These are in the pan within a minute of being beaten, far too fast for the salt to draw water out of the raw egg.

Have the chives and a warm plate beside the hob before the pan goes on the heat. The whole thing cooks in under a minute and there is none of that minute to spare.

Set a 20cm non-stick or well-seasoned steel pan over medium-high heat for about a minute.

Drop in the butter.

Watch the butter rather than the clock. It should foam up hard, hiss, and then begin to go quiet as the water boils out of it, which is the pan telling you it is hot enough.

Do not pour the eggs into a pan where the butter is only melting quietly. A cool pan sets the egg slowly and evenly all the way through, and what comes out is a flat rubbery disc rather than something layered around a soft middle.

Lift the pan off the heat for a few seconds if the butter colours past pale gold. Brown butter means the pan has gone too far, and the omelette takes colour the instant the egg lands.

Pour in the eggs all at once.

Shake the pan back and forth with one hand while you stir the eggs hard with the flat of a fork in the other, keeping everything moving for the first 20-25 seconds.

Keep that agitation constant. It is what breaks the setting egg into fine curds, and it keeps any one part of the mixture from sitting still on hot metal long enough to brown.

Stop as soon as the eggs look like small soft curds in a little loose liquid, with nothing yet set into a sheet.

Spread the curds level with the back of the fork and leave the pan still for 10-15 seconds, until the underside has set into one piece and the top is still wet and glossy.

Take the pan off the heat while the centre is plainly loose — baveuse. It goes on cooking in the pan and again inside the roll, and an omelette that looks finished before it leaves the heat is dry on the plate.

Scatter the chives down the middle.

Tilt the pan away from you at about 45 degrees and let the omelette slide down to the far edge.

Fold the near third over the middle with the fork.

Hold the warm plate against the far lip of the pan.

Turn the pan over in one movement, so the omelette rolls out with the far third folding under it and the seam ending up underneath.

Look at the surface. It should be an even pale yellow, since in this style any browning at all counts as a fault rather than as colour.

Press the roll into a neat oval with a clean tea towel if it landed untidily.

Finish with a pinch of flaky salt and the ground peppercorns.

Eat it straight away.

The soft scrambled eggs in this collection are the same protein handled the opposite way, slowly and over low heat, where this one lives on speed and a properly hot pan.