Even if you haven’t worked in a restaurant, the concept of family meal may be familiar: it’s the act of cobbling together a meal that salvages or repurposes ingredients to resourcefully feed a restaurant’s staff before service, and, ideally, to connect them at the table.
The frugality of this kind of meal can be thrilling – it’s a marriage of hospitality and practicality – and it exemplifies how many of us are preparing food right now, as many home cooks have leaned into making focaccia, growing victory gardens and stretching staple ingredients.
Despite pioneering lavish modernist cuisine at El Bulli restaurant in Spain, Ferran Adrià’s cookbook The Family Meal: Home Cooking with Ferran Adrià embraces restraint. In it, Adrià explored the dishes he created alongside Eugeni de Diego, a head chef at the restaurant, to serve the staff. The book tackles approachable meals using limited ingredient lists, a topic not often associated with Michelin-starred restaurants but one that is ever popular with home cooks – and practised now with renewed fervour.
The simplicity of Adrià’s omelette is its charm: using just eggs, a packet of crisps – or potato chips, if they’re the gourmet kind – and olive oil, it evokes the flavours of a labour-intensive tortilla Española but takes only minutes to assemble and cook.
Adrià encourages cooks to use the best-quality crisps and eggs available, but the recipe works with any crisps you may have, even flavoured ones. The tortilla’s execution may take some practice, but it’s straightforward: Whisk eggs until light and aerated, fold in the chips until slightly softened, then cook in a slick of olive oil in a nonstick skillet.
The only challenge is the flip. You’ll want to turn the omelette the second it starts to set underneath. You may fret about the loose, glistening, alarmingly uncooked egg mixture on top. Have some faith, cover the omelette with a plate and twist your wrists without hesitation, then just slide the omelette back on to the skillet to finish cooking. (Everything will be fine – and the thrill of the flip is part of the dish’s delight.)
You could opt to add some finely sliced chives, a pinch of piment d’Espelette or paprika, or a handful of grated Manchego or any other cheese you have on hand. Equally, you could serve the omelette alongside salad or charcuterie. But any addition is purely extraneous. Textural, salty and rich beyond expectation, the crisp omelette needs nothing else.
Spurred by necessity but inspired by ingenuity, it’s the type of food just right for this moment, and a small victory however you enjoy it.
Ferran Adrià’s crisp omelette
Serves 4 to 6. Total time: 10 minutes
Ingredients
12 large eggs
170g of crisps/potato chips
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and black pepper, for serving (optional)
Method
1. Crack the eggs into a medium bowl and whisk vigorously until frothy and lightened in colour, about 4 minutes. (If you have a balloon whisk, now is the time to use it: It will aerate better than a standard whisk, and should take half the time and effort. Either way, your arm will burn by the end of this, but a fluffy, puffy omelette will be your reward.)
2. Add 1 tbsp oil to a deep 26cm nonstick frying pan and heat over medium.
3. Add the crisps to the eggs. Using a plastic spatula, gently fold a few times to ensure they are coated. Let the crisps soak for 1 minute.
4. Pour the mixture into the skillet, using the spatula to spread the potatoes into an even layer, then to loosen the omelette from the sides of the pan.
5. After the bottom of the omelette is just about set – it should barely take on colour but the top isn’t completely set – 3 to 4 minutes, cover the omelette with an upside-down plate or a large, flat lid. Holding one hand flat against the plate and holding the pan by its handle, gently flip over the omelette to release it on to the plate.
6. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon oil to the pan, then carefully slide the omelette from the plate, uncooked-side-down, into the pan and cook for about 2 minutes. Slide the omelette onto a plate, slice and serve immediately. – New York Times
