h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"... newly revealed and slightly brown surface."

Not sure it should ever go brown. Sounds like that would be over-cooking. The omelette should still be slightly runny in the middle when finished.

I agree that it probably shouldn't go brown. Being someone who dislikes runny eggs, I sometimes use the broiler in the cooking process. After the egg mixture and the ingredients have gone into the pan and cooked slightly, I 'bleed' the omlette--I use a spatula to lift one edge of the cooking omlette, and then rock the pan toward that edge so the remaining runny eggs go toward that side. Then I rock it back and the egg mix slips beneath. I do this about 2-3 times around the edge of the pan and then pop the entire thing into a heated broiler. About a minute passes, and the egg has cooked and become light and fluffy (and the cheese has melted too!). Out comes the pan, and I fold the whole thing over. Voila!

I've developed a bit of a 'secret method' myself for cooking omlettes. I agree that they should not be brown, but I don't like them runny either. What I do is this: while the pan is heating, I place the lid of the pan on the adjacent burner, getting it good and hot as well (I use a thick cast-iron frypan, with a thick cast-iron lid, so it holds heat well... not all lids would work, and some might well melt). Then, when I have poured in the egg, and rotated until it's nice and even, I wait until it starts to cook on the bottom, then put on the *very* hot lid, and take the whole thing off the heat, and let it sit for a minute or two. It doesn't take long until the whole thing is cooked very nicely and delicately all the way through. Basically, it's just creating a sort of broiler/oven situation. But it works very well, especially as flipping it doesn't work very well, due to the aforementioned heavy cast-iron pan.