There are four seasons, seven seas, twelve months in a year, six cases in Russian grammar, 281 mountains in Scotland over 3,000 feet and, according to the Reader's Digest Complete Book of the Garden, four distinct groups of cauliflower.
Humans have always developed systems of classification to impose order, and thus meaning, on an essentially chaotic universe. When we encounter a new object or event which defies classification, there are two choices open to us. We can either modify our system to accommodate the new entity, or adjust our view of the thing so that it falls within the parameters of our existing system.
When I discovered an eggless omlette on my travels I wasn't sure which approach to take. I read about it first in the menu at the Hotel Grand Orzu in Tashkent and after some initial surprise, I thought, 'Well if it doesn't contain eggs, it isn't really an omlette, is it?'. However, when it was served up and I tried it, I had to concede that it had many of the other qualities one usually expects in a good omlette.
Whether every class of object has at least one essential defining quality is a question John Locke wrestled with at length more than 300 years ago. I don't intend to get into it here in a half page recipe introduction, but I will say that I no longer view being composed largely of beaten eggs as an essential quality of any omlette. In fact, I would like to say that, as far as I'm concerned, there are two kinds of omlette, those with eggs and those without.
Ingredients
2 medium potatoes, peeled and boiled
1 large tomato
A small handful of tinned green peas
About 70 grams of cheese
Salt
Olive oil
Cut the tomato in half and remove the seeds then chop it into small cubes. Grate the boiled potatoes and cheese. Be gentle with the potatoes or they will turn into mush. The success of your omlette partly depends on how fluffy your grated potato is. 'Fluffy' means the little pieces stay separate from each other.
Put a little olive oil in a frying pan (and I mean just a little) and heat
it. When it is fairly hot, sprinkle the potato as evenly as you can over the
whole area of the pan. Don't spread it, just sprinkle. Next sprinkle on the
peas, then the tomato, a little salt and finally the cheese. Cover the pan with
a lid and turn down the heat. Cook on low to medium for eight to ten minutes
then remove the lid and turn the heat up a little to brown the base of your
omlette. After another three minutes or so it will be ready. Loosen the edges
with a spatula and slide the omlette onto a plate.