• 5 good-sized eggs
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 tablespoons whipped egg white
• a little freshly grated gruyère or parmesan

Break eggs into a bowl and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Heat the omelette pan gradually on a medium heat until it is hot enough to make butter sizzle on contact. Add water to eggs and beat with a fork or wire whisk just enough to mix yolks and whites. Add butter to heated pan and shake until butter coats bottom of pan evenly. When butter is sizzling, pour in the beaten eggs all at once.

Quickly stir eggs for a second or two in the pan to assure even cooking just as you would for scrambled eggs. Then, if you want your omelette to be supremely light, stir in 2 tablespoons whipped egg white and a sprinkling of freshly grated Gruyère or Parmesan cheese - not enough to give it a cheesy flavour, but just enough to intensify the eggy taste of your omelette.

And now is the time to start working: as eggs begin to set, life edges with a fork or palette knife so that the liquid can run under. Repeat until liquid is all used up but the eggs are still moist and soft, keeping eggs from sticking by shaking pan during the above operation.

Remove eggs from heat and, with one movement, slide the omelette towards the handle. When a third of the omelette has slid up the rounded edge of the pan, fold this quickly towards the centre with your palette knife. Raise the handle of the pan and slide opposite edge of omelette one-third up the side farthest away from the handle. Hold a heated serving dish under the pan, and as the rim of the omelette touches the dish, raise the handle more and more, until the pan is turned upside down and your oval-shaped, lightly browned omelette rests on the dish.

French chefs usually “finish” their omelettes by skimming the surface lightly with a knob of butter on the point of a knife. Serve immediately.

After one or two tries to achieve your cook’s tour de main, you should be able to produce a delicious omelette every time, golden on the outside and as juicy as you could wish inside.