Donna Hay's Bacon Omelette with Roasted Tomatoes

Smoky, salty bacon in a creamy omelette served with sweet, juicy, burst-in-you-mouth tomatoes

Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids organised a Blog Hop event called Cook Like a Star and I was so excited to join in the event. Events like this motivates me to try out new recipes, thanks Zoe!

The event this month is to cook like Donna Hay, an Australian food stylist, author and magazine editor. I've heard of her many times but unfortunately I've never gotten my hands on any of her recipes before... /: After browsing through Donna Hay's website, I settled on making a bacon omelette with roasted tomatoes - because just the name of the dish itself is mouth-watering!

Splurging on tomatoes

I've actually made this dish last week and it wasn't very successful. Previously I used hydroponically grown cherry tomatoes that cost SGD 2 for 250 grams - they were not juicy, bland and some of them have not even ripened! I remembered loving the tomatoes in Europe - fully ripened, sweet and juicy! (Though we didn't to eat a lot of them because of the E. coli breakout)

So I read somewhere online and found that hydroponically grown tomatoes do lack in flavour and vitamin C because they are often grown in greenhouses which inhibits access to sunlight and they have no way of obtaining flavour from the natural soil. Normal tomatoes (that are grown in soil) are often picked while they are still green and then exported out of the country. They  are then exposed to ethylene gas to induce colour and ripening before being sold in supermarkets. Vine-tomatoes are tomatoes that are picked while still green together with their vine and left to ripen naturally, without any ethylene gas.

I'm unsure of how true this is, but I do know that any unripened fruits can be left in a bag with bananas because bananas release ethylene gas naturally, which helps induce ripening.

Oops I'm digressing - anyway, I was willing to spend on good quality tomatoes this time round, so I decided to splurge on this box of imported vine-on tomatoes - a whooping SGD 6.60 for 9 small tomatoes (about 1 to 1.5 inch in diameter). They were very pricey, but they turned out to be really delicious - they are so sweet and so, so juicy! (Not to mention they look extremely pretty!) I will definitely buy it again, just not on an everyday basis. 😉

Frying the bacon - so irresistibly tasty!

I really love bacon - salty, smoky and crispy - but I try not to eat it so often because we all know how unhealthy it is!

Two large eggs per person - too many eggs and it's gonna be hard to make a good omelette.

I'm using an 8-inch non-stick frying pan to make the omelette. The ideal number of eggs is 2 large ones (or 3 small ones) because if too many eggs are used, it's gonna be hard to cook the eggs evenly, and there's a tendency to overcook some part of the eggs and end up with rubbery / leathery omelettes which is plain yuck (I've made too many failed omelettes in the past - and I swear, it's really gross to eat a rubbery omelette)

Frying the omelette - creamy scrambled-egg like interior

A perfect omelette to me must be folded, with the exterior still yellow and not browned, and the interior creamy and still soft - like almost-cooked scrambled eggs. I learnt some of the tips in making omelettes from one of my favourite chefs - Jamie Oliver - and below's a video of him teaching how to make scrambled eggs.

Omelette by Jamie Oliver

Getting the bacon and Parmesan cheese onto the omelette.

Served with some blanched asparagus and roasted tomatoes and I am a happy girl.

Donna Hay's Bacon Omelette with Roasted Tomatoes

 

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Serves 2

By: Jasline N.

Ingredients

• 150 grams cherry / small tomatoes
• Olive oil
• Bunch of asparagus
• 6 strips of streaky bacon, trimmed off excess fat
• 4 large eggs
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Grated Parmesan cheese

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Wash and drain the cherry tomatoes. Place the cherry tomatoes in a baking dish and drizzle with a little olive oil. Toss lightly to coat the cherry tomatoes and bake them for 15 - 20 minutes until the tomatoes are soft and the skins wrinkly. Turn the oven heat down to the lowest setting to keep the tomatoes warm.
2. Wash and trim the asparagus. Heat a pot of water and season lightly with salt. Blanch the asparagus until they are soft. Drain the asparagus and keep warm.
3. Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium heat and fry the bacon for 4 to 5 minutes until they are crispy and golden-brown, turning them several times. Remove the bacon from the frying pan and drain the excess fats on kitchen towels / papers. Discard the bacon fats and clean the pan.
4. Beat 2 eggs in a bowl with a fork and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper (use salt sparingly because Parmesan cheese and bacon are salty). Re-heat the cleaned non-stick frying pan over medium heat and drizzle in a little olive oil. The pan and oil should be hot enough such that a soft egg skin is formed almost immediately once the eggs are added into the pan (test by dropping a drop of the beaten eggs). Once the eggs are added, turn the heat down to medium-low.
5. Working quickly and using a frying stick or a heat-resistant spatula, scrap the bottom of the egg skin slightly and tilt the pan so that the uncooked liquid eggs flow to the bottom (see Jamie Oliver's video above). Repeat this several times until the eggs are almost set (no more liquid but the eggs have not hardened) - remove the frying pan from the heat to do this / turn down the heat if the bottom of the eggs are setting too fast.
6. Add in half of the bacon and desired amount of Parmesan cheese. Fold the omelette and turn it out onto the serving plate. A good omelette should be yellow in colour with no browned spots - the insides should be still soft and slightly creamy - a bit like almost-done scrambled eggs
7. Repeat with the remaining 2 eggs.
8. Serve the omelette with the roasted tomatoes and blanched asparagus immediately.

Naggy Notes

adapted from Donna Hay's classic bistro dish

3.2.2708

Super Naggy:

[1] The ideal number of eggs per omelette is 2 to 3, depending on the size of the frying pan. Cook only one omelette at a time - omelette cooks very fast and you have no time to be distracted! Don't be greedy and cook too many eggs at once as well, as it will be difficult to cook the eggs evenly and there's a high probability you'll overcook the eggs and resulting in a yucky, leathery omelette.

[2] The frying pan needs to be hot enough such that the eggs will sizzle gently once they go into the pan. A good non-stick pan will make life much easier to make a successful omelette.

[3] Variations: Season the eggs with herbs; swap out the Parmesan cheese with Cheddar; serve with fresh salad etc - the variations' endless!

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