The Omelette that wanted to be Lunch

This is one of those ‘make do’ recipes that is fun, easy and a nice combination of naughty and nice ingredients. Though it started life as a luxury omelette stuffing, it’s great folded into left-over rice or freshly boiled pasta for a lunch-box. What I like best about this recipe is that you can tweak it to include whatever you have in the fridge.

Ingredients

Button mushrooms (about 2 per person, washed, chopped and fried)

Red pepper (or green or a de-seeded tomato – about 1 finely chopped teaspoon per person)

1 finely chopped garlic clove (or 2… not more)

Black olives (2/3 per person)

Cooked chicken sausage (or shredded roast chicken or bacon or vegan ‘chicken’ or salami – 1 tbsp chopped per person)

Herbs – 1/2 tsp per person – combinations of parsley, thyme, basil and oregano work best – dried herbs will also do or add some of that oregano based seasoning you saved from last night’s pizza delivery.

Salt to season

Optional ingredients for the lunch option:

Chopped zucchini sautéed, steamed corn niblets, steamed broccoli

Method:

For the omelette, combine all the ingredients and an egg or two per head (depending on how hungry the breakfasters are) and beat it briskly to aerate the mixture until a light foam of small bubbles forms on top. Heat some olive oil in a non-stick pan until it is quite hot but far from smoking. Ideally, when you pour in the omelette mix, on contact with the oil it should form a ‘layer’ at the bottom which is when you lower the flame to medium. When the edges of the omelette start fluffing up, give the pan a gentle shake to loosen the omelette. Patience.  If you’re too nervous about flipping the whole omelette at one go, you can fold over… or cut the omelettte in the pan with your spatula and flip one quarter or half over at ta time. Season with pepper and eat with freshly toasted multi-grain bread.

For the Lunch-box

This can’t be simpler.  In olive oil, sautee a clove of garlic, toss the rest of the ingredients in along with the herbs and then fold in yesterday’s left over rice or freshly boiled pasta.