I love JAM and am good friends with their staff but I just have to say, criticizing an omelet for being color free is like criticizing coffee for being hot or pasta being al dente. I have worked in one kitchen were cooking a perfect omelet is the first task given to you by the chef and he throws away every one until you finally get a beautiful, color free version to serve. This omelet, along with the one at Au Cheval are for me the best two textbook preparations in Chicago.

As for the rest, hey we all have our own opinions and yours are as good as mine, just couldn't let anyone think that a perfectly prepared omelet was somehow "wrong" in a technical sense.

Regards,

Bourbon

Bourbon wrote:I love JAM and am good friends with their staff but I just have to say, criticizing an omelet for being color free is like criticizing coffee for being hot or pasta being al dente. I have worked in one kitchen were cooking a perfect omelet is the first task given to you by the chef and he throws away every one until you finally get a beautiful, color free version to serve. This omelet, along with the one at Au Cheval are for me the best two textbook preparations in Chicago.

As for the rest, hey we all have our own opinions and yours are as good as mine, just couldn't let anyone think that a perfectly prepared omelet was somehow "wrong" in a technical sense.

Regards,

Bourbon

If you read my post carefully, you'd see that I wasn't criticizing that aspect of the omelet at all - I just noted it was very different from how I typically find omelets prepared. I cook a number of items sous vide at home, I understand (or think I understand) that Jam cooks some items sous vide, and was just wondering if that's what they're doing, at least in part. The criticism is that the omelet had some terrific ingredients that were all obscured by a very heavy tomato/pepper sauce.

For the record, a proper omelet is color free, i.e. no browning. For that matter, old style necessitated using clarified butter for that very reason and being souffled in the oven as well. It in fact used to be a fairly common kitchen skill test. "Make me an omelet". Miss any of those points and fail. Ask Evil, I'm sure he'll vouch for this. On any given Sunday @ the East Bank Club circa 85, we'd open up the kitchen (ala Arnie Morton) and the members would file though for their eggs. I was the omelet bitch and could be found making 3-400 on 16 burners @ a time ladled from 15 gallons of cracked eggs between 10-2pm.

Jazzfood wrote:For the record, a proper omelet is color free, i.e. no browning. For that matter, old style necessitated using clarified butter for that very reason and being souffled in the oven as well. It in fact used to be a fairly common kitchen skill test. "Make me an omelet". Miss any of those points and fail. Ask Evil, I'm sure he'll vouch for this. On any given Sunday @ the East Bank Club circa 85, we'd open up the kitchen (ala Arnie Morton) and the members would file though for their eggs. I was the omelet bitch and could be found making 3-400 on 16 burners @ a time ladled from 15 gallons of cracked eggs between 10-2pm.

What is a proper omelet and what one is almost always served are two different things. I was not complaining that it was under- or over-cooked. The texture itself was perfectly fine. What made me think this might have been cooked sous vide (or possibly in some sort of souffle dish in the oven I suppose - which I hadn't considered) was the lack of butter flavor on the eggs, the fact that it was more round and puffed as opposed to flat and did not appear to be folded, and knowing that they incorporate sous vide cooking in their kitchen. But again, though I found the omelet presentation/shape/lack of browning to be unusual, it was the filling that I found objectionable.

Brad,

The omelet primer wasn't aimed @ you. It was intended for general knowledge.

Jam restaurant officially is leaving its Logan Boulevard location of five years. As a result of a rent dispute, the breakfast favorite is leaving its current home at 3057 W. Logan Blvd. to move to the former Yusho spot at 2852 N. Kedzie Ave., according to owner Anthony Fiore.

https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/2017100 ... are-moving

Note that DNA Info got the address wrong. Yusho was across the street at 2853 N Kedzie.