Antoni Porowski's Trick to Making a Perfect French Omelet

Rebecca Firkser
"Fold in some Boursin at the last minute."

Antoni Porowski may seem like the ideal host on Queer Eye (he makes sangria! he uses an infrared grill!), but in real life he’s not frequently slicing up fruit for parties. Between shooting another season of the show, opening a restaurant, and working on his first cookbook, he barely has time to eat breakfast, let alone host dinner parties. Still, always the instructor—his role on Queer Eye is to help people become comfortable with cooking—he’ll always pause his schedule to offer a helping hand in the kitchen.

“I recently taught my dad how to make a proper French omelet,” Porowski told me. “I think it’s Ludo Lefebvre who makes that classic Boursin omelet. I taught him how to make that.” Though he said his father is the brunch king in the family, his specialties are crepes and quiche. The younger Porowski felt it was high time to teach his father about another French classic. He's been a Boursin fan since he was a kid in Canada: "I know it’s a French cheese, but I associate it with my time in Canada, we always had it on cheese boards." It's the best filling for an omelet, he said, as it’s so soft and tender.

Porowski talked through all the steps of the omelet recipe, and even though he was in Los Angeles and I was in a tiny phone booth in a New York City office building, if I'd had a pan and some eggs, I would not have needed a recipe. I had Antoni.

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Mondays are usually met with a carb and sugar hangover, my body begging for some nutrition, but no energy to cook a proper meal. Cue the wonderful egg: A delicate French omelette. Does mine look like a massive quenelle the way this classic should? Nope. I tend to overdo stuffing mine (perhaps a nod to my excessive and indulgent personality/nature, I suppose), here with crispy baby Bellas and Fontina. The key is to cut the mushrooms as thin as possible and sauté w a bit of olive oil and cook them until they are crispy, just before burning. Mushy mush (pun!) will only void you of enjoying their earthy flavor and keep your omelette a sloppy-ass mess. The cheese should be grated on a micro plane so that it melts to oozy perfection. As for the omelette, you’ll see me demo one in due time (working on content!) but until then, YouTube Jacques Pépin and he’ll show you with effortless ease and class how to make this staple part of your weekly arsenal. Serve w arugula, shallots, evoo, good salt and pepper. Finish with confetti of chives and voilà. ????@jkrietemeyer

A post shared by Antoni Porowski (@antoni) on Mar 19, 2018 at 9:11am PDT

“Keep the pan on really low heat, low slow and steady,” he explained. “You want no color on the eggs, so they stay perfectly yellow. It’s like tamago at a Japanese restaurant, that really bright vibrant color. And then you fold in some Boursin at the last minute.” Kill the heat. Slide the omelet onto a plate. Top with fresh chives and ground pepper. “I also like to brush the top of the omelet with a bit of butter to keep it glistening.”

Indeed, Porowski feels strongly about the power of food. “It’s an incredibly emotional thing. It triggers nostalgia, the dishes my parents made me growing up, that loved ones have made.” He said you can always find that personal link to food somehow, even with people who claim not to care much about eating or cooking. Though Porowski personally enjoys thinking back on past meals he’s loved, he recognizes not everyone has such positive food memories. “If it’s hard for someone to be nostalgic, [I suggest they] think about the people you’re grateful for—anyone can name people someone they’re grateful for, and that’s such a great reason to cook.”