A Heart Attack Omelet
I got up this morning, and decided that I was going to have a ham and egg sandwich for breakfast. By the time I got to the kitchen, I had changed my mind to having a ham and cheese omelet. As I looked into my refrigerator, I thought that I would mix some sour cream with the egg, because that would make a richer omelet than just egg. I pulled out two eggs, cheese, ham, and the sour cream. Then I said to myself, “Self, since I am doing this, why not add some onion and garlic”. I pulled out an onion, and the garlic, saw some green pepper in my vegetable drawer, and grabbed that out also. I minced a clove of garlic, and about a quarter cup each of pepper and onion.
As I was doing this, I was trying to decide whether I wanted to cook this in olive oil or in butter. Obviously, the olive oil is healthier, but the butter tastes oh, so good. Then I remembered the bacon grease. I always save the bacon grease when I cook off bacon because for certain dishes, it imparts a flavor that is like nothing else in the world. I went back into the fridge, grabbed the bacon grease, and put a dollop of it into the waiting, hot sauté pan. After I watched it melt, and it began to smoke, I added the chopped veggies. I grated into that some dried chili peppers – I keep a pepper mill filled with peppers intended for shaking on pizza on hand for that extra heat, when needed. The smell of the onion, garlic, bacon and peppers filled my nostrils, and set my taste buds watering. I closed my eyes, and said, I’m going to go all the way on this one.
I went back into the fridge, grabbed a tomato. and chopped up about a half of a cup. I also grabbed a potato, and chopped up three-quarters of a cup of it into quarter-inch cubes. I added the potato to the frying pan, gave it a good stir, and went to gather my spices: cumin, ground coriander seed, a dash each. Then about a half a tablespoon of chili powder. Stir, stir, stir. As I added the chopped ham, I thought that capers would do this very well, so I pulled out five, chopped them up, and added them to the mix with the tomatoes.
While I let the flavors mingle, I beat the eggs. While I did this, I contemplated adding the sour cream to the eggs, but decided against it. I figured the sour cream would be a cool and creamy counterpoint to the spiciness of the omelet filling. The frying pan came off of the stove, it’s contents scooped and scraped onto a plate.
After a quick scrub, the frying pan was returned to the stove with another dollop of bacon grease. After the grease was melted over a low flame, the eggs were added, and the pan covered. After 30 seconds, the cover was lifted, and I saw the eggs were almost done. I spread the ham, potato and vegetable mixture evenly over the eggs. On one side went several tablespoons of sour cream, and the whole omelet covered with cheddar cheese. The lid was returned, and after thirty seconds or so, the entire thing was slid out, onto the waiting plate, a gentle flip of the wrist folding the non-sour cream covered half over the rest of the omelet.
Mmmmm . . . it was certainly a tasty treat – and probably not that good for me. I mean: ham, bacon grease, sour cream, cheese, and eggs all together in a single meal is probably not the best thing I have ever done for my heart and coronary arteries.
It did taste damn good, though.
