Breakfast Abundance: The Harvest Omelette

by Ari LeVaux

A key ingredient in the harvest omelette is improvisation.

It’s that time of year when all of the produce is ready. The tomatoes, corn, squash, beans and other typical harvest crops are piling up in the fields and farmers market tables, and even the plants that petered out during the heat of summer, like spinach, lettuce and radishes, are back. All in all, it’s a great time to be hungry. 

Amidst this kaleidoscope of earthy glory, you need recipes that can incorporate many types of fresh ingredients. I’ve written about using stir-fry and ramen to handle a bunch of random veg. Today we’ll explore my new favorite vehicle: the harvest omelet.

To make it, we’ll cook some bacon and potatoes as a base, and sauté a bunch of seasonal veggies to go on top of the potatoes, and then pour beaten eggs over the whole business. This browned lattice, a temple to the Maillard reaction, acts like rebar in the structure of the set egg. We’ll sprinkle some cheese on top and cover the pan to trap steam, which will cook the top of the omelet and melt the cheese. Serve it open-faced, not folded like a typical omelet, almost like a breakfast pizza. (Gluten free!)

Today’s omelette contained sautéed tomatoes, green beans, red pepper, garlic and hakurai salad turnip, including its greens. Each bite was an assortment of textures and flavors that beamed me straight down to the earth beating under my feet. 

In order to follow this recipe properly you need an eggbeater, because of what you are gonna do to those eggs. A whisk might work, depending on how much fast-twitch muscle you have in your wrist, but forget about using a fork. I can’t overstate how violently we want to beat those eggs. Beat them like they mugged your mom. 

Harvest Omelette

The goal of this recipe is for you to learn the basic gist so you can improvise with what is available on any given day. You don’t have to use bacon. It’s just better when you do. 

Ingredients

1 normal sized potato, sliced into fries (a mandolin helps, but isn’t necessary like that eggbeater)

3 slices of bacon, sliced crosswise into lardons

1 large clove of garlic, or several small cloves, sliced thinly

Fresh vegetables. My latest batch included: 
—4 cherry tomatoes, each sliced in half
—1 hakurai turnip and its greens, diced
—Part of a red bell pepper, sliced into gum stick-sized pieces
—10 green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch lengths

1 tablespoon XVOO

3 eggs

Salt, pepper, garnish, condiments

Procedure

In a heavy-bottom pan, fry the bacon bits and French fries on medium heat. Gently stir them by lifting from below with a spatula, and flipping the fries onto their non-browned sides. 

Heat an omelette pan on medium. Add olive oil and your veggies, stirring only once in a while. 

Toss the bacon fries with the veggies and add the foamed eggs. Sprinkle on some cheese, turn off the heat and put a lid on. Let the steam build up and cook the top and then cool down for about five minutes. Bang the frypan sideways against something heavy, like the bacon pan — or the guys who mugged mom — to loosen the egg off the bottom, if necessary. Then slide it off onto a plate. Serve with hot sauce and mayo.