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  • An omelette Arnold Bennett is a flat omelette served in a dish.

  • I'm going to add a little bit of a twist.

  • I'm going to take away the smoked haddock

  • that normally goes with this dish and I'm going to ask our chefs

  • to use crab meat instead. It's got gruyere cheese.

  • It's served with a hollandaise sauce over the top,

  • and gratinated under the grill.

  • Right, OK. Let's see how it's done.

  • So, for the hollandaise, the first thing I need to do

  • is get the white wine vinegar reduction.

  • It's just basic white wine vinegar,

  • a couple of bay leaves and some white peppercorns.

  • So, I'm going to use three egg yolks.

  • Just going to start whipping them up.

  • As you start to whisk the eggs, you have to be very careful.

  • Too hot and it will start to cook the egg yolks.

  • We're looking for the ribbon stage,

  • which is when you lift it up, you see the ribbons in the bowl.

  • My white wine vinegar is now reduced by half.

  • I'm going to pour that into there.

  • Now we need to start adding our clarified butter.

  • Got to keep whisking.

  • What you need to do now is a little spoon of vinegar,

  • and that automatically just lets that sauce right down.

  • That allows me now to incorporate some more butter.

  • Do you know the history?

  • Did Arnold Bennett, the author, order it in the Savoy?

  • That's it. And it's become famous.

  • So, this is where a chef's intuition

  • is going to have to come into the equation.

  • So, now it's just about getting it to the right consistency and taste.

  • Yeah. So, there is the hollandaise.

  • And what we've also got on the bench here

  • is some lightly whipped double cream.

  • Believe it or not, it actually takes the richness of the hollandaise down a little bit.

  • Right, I'm going to make the omelette now.

  • So, I'm going to use four eggs, give the eggs a good whisk.

  • Butter's foaming, just nicely coming up to temperature.

  • It's not too hot.

  • Put that into there. Now you can't stop.

  • You've got to keep the process going.

  • So, you're making almost like a half-scrambled,

  • half-omelette type mixture in the pan here.

  • Transfer it into this serving dish.

  • Now we add the crab meat...

  • ..some gruyere cheese,

  • and then what we do is you just pour on our hollandaise.

  • Oh!

  • It's layered up. It's ready to go. Now I've just got to glaze it.

  • So, that just takes a couple of seconds to brown it, then?

  • That's why you can't walk away from it.

  • And there you have it - omelette Arnold Bennett with crab meat.

  • Whoa! Isn't it beautiful?

An omelette Arnold Bennett is a flat omelette served in a dish.

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