Food Court Omelette

Food court omelette
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Recipe courtesy of Tenderheart by Hetty Lui McKinnon, Macmillan Publishers, RRP $69.99

This omelette is full of sweet nostalgia, inspired by a dish my husband and I often enjoyed for dinner while we were still university students and part-time theatre ushers. We met at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney’s Chinatown, a site opposite a building where my dad lived during his early days in Sydney. The significance of this was lost on me back then, as I busily revelled in my newfound independence and the diverse group of friends we had made on the job. We spent a lot of time in Chinatown and we enjoyed many inexpensive meals at nearby food courts. One of our favourite dishes was a generous plate of rice, topped with a mound of stir-fried veggies, blanketed with a fluffy omelette and finished with a thick, umami gravy. I’d never really eaten a meal like this at home, but it did remind me of my mother’s egg and rice dishes. When we relocated to America and started to explore the distinct dishes of Chinese–American cuisine, we discovered that our food court omelette was very close to a deep-fried egg dish known as egg foo young.

Food court omeletteMAKES 4–5 × 15 CM OMELETTES

Ingredients

  • 6 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1⁄8 teaspoon white pepper
  • 1 head of broccoli (about 350 g), cut into small florets, stalk peeled and cut into 5 mm thick discs
  • 1 brown onion, finely diced
  • 4 green onions (shallots), sliced
  • 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
  • 2–3 tablespoons neutral oil
  • white or brown rice, to serve

Gravy

  • 1 tablespoon cornflour
  • 1 1⁄2 tablespoons soy sauce or tamari
  • 3 teaspoons vegetarian stir-fry sauce or oyster sauce
  • 3 teaspoons Shaoxing rice wine
  • 2 teaspoons roasted sesame oil
  • 250 ml (1 cup) vegetable stock or water
  • pinch of white pepper

For gluten free use mirin in place of Shaoxing rice wine

Substitute Shaoxing rice wine: mirin, dry white wine or dry sherry

Vegetable swap – broccoli: broccoli stalks, cauliflower, baby bok choy, gai larn

Method

  1. To make the gravy, place all the ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to the boil over medium heat, whisking constantly, for 4–5 minutes, until the gravy thickens. Set aside.
  2. Place the eggs, salt and white pepper in a mixing bowl and whisk until smooth. Add the broccoli, onion, three-quarters of the green onion and the garlic and mix well.
  3. Place a small frying pan over high heat. When hot (you should see wisps of smoke rising from the surface), add 1 tablespoon of the oil to the pan, then ladle about 1⁄2 cup of the batter straight into the hot oil. Fry for 1–11⁄2 minutes, until golden and puffy. Using a large wide spatula, confidently flip the omelette over and cook for about 1 minute on the other side, until golden. Remove from the pan and continue cooking the remaining batter.
  4. To serve, place some rice in a bowl, top with an omelette and pour over some of the gravy. Top with the remaining green onion.

Tips: If you have any extra broccoli stalks saved up, cut them into 5 mm thick discs and use in this recipe.

I like to fry one omelette at a time, which gives me more control over the cooking process. If you have a small frying pan, use that as it will keep the egg from running all over the pan.