WHY I DON’T LIKE HOW THE FRENCH COOK AN OMELETTE.

Because it’s perfect. And perfect is boring. Give me a messy, golden, gooey home-made omelette any time.

The making of an omelette is an essential life skill. It teaches you about the use of heat, about sensitivity, using the right tool for the job, and about working at speed. It gives you courage, inspiration and confidence - and it gives you a beautiful meal at the same time.

Along with countless other home cooks, I taught myself the classic French way, in which you scramble the egg lightly in the pan with a fork, leaving the top creamy and ‘baveuse’ (almost gooey), the bottom smooth and pale before rolling it into a cylinder and onto the plate.

It’s a great technique, but essentially it’s a boring result.

There’s no oomph.

It’s a scrambled egg wrap.

The home cook’s way, as opposed to the chef’s route, is much more fun.

Whisk eggs, pour into pan, help it cook on top by drawing back the edges to let the uncooked egg spill over the top and pool against the heat of the pan.

Then at the right point – pretty much when the egg on top moves like slow lava when the pan is tilted, pile on your cheese, your ham, your whatever; tilt the pan and assist one half to enclose the other, then out on the plate. 

It's golden and textured outside, and still creamy and soft and oozy inside.

Your fillings, meanwhile, have softened and warmed.

Your cheese has melted.

It’s dinner, done.

So here’s the low-down on the perfect fast golden omelette. You can use the base recipe with just cheese as the flavour. For a cheese and tomato omelette, add diced and drained tomatoes. For a cheese and ham omelette, add a handful of finely sliced strips of ham or salami. You get the picture.

I went beyond all that, with a red kidney bean and jalapeno Mexican salsa that is my go-to to have with salmon or on half an avocado for lunch. It’s fresh, crunchy and lime-juice sharp. It’s omelette as soft taco shell. But who knew that that beans would go so well in an omelette? Not me.

FAST GOLDEN OMELETTE WITH MEXICAN SALSA

For each individual omelette:

• 2 to 3 large eggs, depending on hunger

• Dash of milk or cream

• sea salt and pepper

• 1 tsp butter or olive oil

• 1 cup Mexican salsa, drained (recipe below)

• 2 tbsp coarsely grated cheese

• Handful coriander leaves for serving

Lightly beat the eggs and milk with sea salt and pepper (using fork or a whisk).

Heat the butter or oil in a small non-stick pan, and swirl to coat the surface.

Pour in the eggs, and cook over medium heat. Sake the pan to help the eggs settle, and use a spatula to draw the mixture in from the edge two or three times, tilting the pan to allow the uncooked egg to spill into the gap.

When lightly set but still wet on top, lower the heat, scatter with half the cheese and as much drained salsa as you like, and give it about 30 seconds to warm through.

Gently fold one half of the omelette over the filling to form an envelope, and slide out onto a warmed plate - it will finish cooking on its way to the table and should still be a little oozy inside.

Finish with remaining cheese, add coriander and serve immediately.

You can see how the cheese has melted already, just before I fold the omelette over.

Without getting all French about it, a few tips:

1. Spend the money on great eggs.

2. Get everything ready to go before you start.

3. A 20 cm non-stick pan with gently sloping sides will help the finished omelette slide out.

4. Make one omelette per person (2 to 3 eggs) in a small pan, or one large omelette for two people (4 to 5 eggs) in a large pan, then cut in half to serve.

5. It’s better to use the cheese, etc as a filling, than put it into the batter as part of the omelette. Herbs such as dill can be lovely in the eggs, however, especially if you serve the omelette with prawns.

6. Remove the omelette from the heat before it is fully cooked.

MEXICAN SALSA

This is your basic salsa fresca. I usually beef it up with a spoonful or two of chipotle salsa from the supermarket, because I like that stuff. The fresh chilli is optional, because it already has jalapeno in it.

• 1 red onion, halved and finely sliced

• 1 red chilli, finely sliced

• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar or wine vinegar

• 400 g red kidney beans

• Handful of small tomatoes, diced

• Half red capsicum, diced

• 3 sliced pickled jalapeno chillies

• 2 tbsp lime juice

• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

• 1 loosely packed cup coriander leaves

• Sea salt and pepper

• Half tsp cumin

• Half tsp paprika

• 2 tbsp commercial chipotle salsa (if you like it chunky)

Toss the sliced onion and chilli in the vinegar and leave to macerate.

Drain and rinse the beans, and place in a large bowl with the diced tomatoes, capsicum, jalapeno and coriander.

Add the quick-pickled onions and chilli and their vinegar and toss well.

Add olive oil, sea salt, pepper, cumin and paprika, and toss well.

Drain in a sieve sitting above a bowl before you add to the omelette - you don’t want it too juicy. And save those fabulous juices for a salad dressing.

Note: Sweetcorn would be great. Avocado for a garnish. Finely shredded iceberg lettuce, icy cold, yes please.

HOW TO RUIN AN OMELETTE

Overbeat the eggs (your omelette will be heavy)

Use too thin a pan (your omelette will scorch)

Use too low a heat (your omelette will be scrambled eggs)

Overcook the eggs (your omelette will be rubbery)

Overload the eggs (your omelette isn’t an omelette any more but a trailer carrying too many status foods).

If you use too much butter to begin with, your omelette will wrinkle - but who cares about wrinkles? They are the texture of life, as opposed to smooth and boring.

My favourite image of my tour of the Singapore Airlines kitchens in Singapore - this is the technology for making perfectly consistent omelettes. Isn’t it adorable?

Thanks for dropping by! And as always, thanks for your comments and opinionated thoughts. Special thanks to Terry for always keeping us in great eggs. If I didn’t have great eggs, I wouldn’t eat eggs.

I would also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands and waters upon which I work, live, cook and play; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I fully support the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and for recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to be enshrined in Australia’s Constitution.