An editor and a teacher’s favourite breakfast - Fluffy Omelette

Apr 23

While Aiyah’s weekday breakfast, at least in his years as an office going man, was rather skimpy and limited to a freshly squeezed fruit juice for nutrition and a hot malt chocolate drink for strength, his Sunday breakfast was rather indulgent. South Indian breakfasts like dosai, podi idli, adai and kuzhi paniyaram featured quite often, but his personal favourite was the fluffy omelette that was an Ayah special. For most people, an omelette meant a quick fix meal – whip up the eggs, mix in some toppings, pour, cook and voila breakfast ready. Not so, Ayah’s Sunday omelette – it was rather involved. Separate the eggs, patiently whisk the whites to perfectly medium peaks, gently fold in the yolks, add in a selection of toppings and cook on gentle heat to golden perfection. Serve with buttered roasted potatoes or homemade french fries and crisp buttered toast points, some freshly squeezed juice and a hot cup of malt chocolate. Sheer indulgence indeed.

As you recover from that foodgasm, we continue with Bhaskaran and Sashi’s memories of Aiyah’s TTK days. Both are unanimous in remembering the Boss’s handwriting and his obsession with a particular brand of fountain pen which in those days could only be sourced from Bombay. Bhaskaran firmly believes that he successfully cleared his job interview in 1983 only because his subject knowledge was strong enough to circumvent the rather squiggly handwriting he had been asked to decipher. Sashi, who had to deal with the deteriorating handwriting while they worked together on producing the group’s award-winning in-house magazine, TTK Spectrum says “On most pages you would find his favourite Wality fountain pen blue ink scribbles forming patterns between paragraphs and margins, creating a sort of mosaic. You developed the instinct to read his lettering and link one sentence with the next.”

Picture courtesy (L to R): RV Rajan, Poornima Manimaran, Google images

I have earlier written about the early onset of Aiyah’s arthritis, a big blow for a writer. Despite all our teasing about him being a technophobe, the real reason behind his preference of the typewriter over computers and smart phones was the trouble he had in gripping the mouse and his inability to navigate the keys and screens which needed a light touch that his stiff fingers were incapable of. So, his Olivetti was his favoured friend till his last days. The Wality pens that Sashi refers to were another attempt at conquering his stiff fingers and making his scribbles legible. The fountain pens came in packs of 6-10, a mixture of different diameters – he kept the larger pens for himself because the wider barrels were easier for arthritic fingers to grasp. The rest of them, the thinner ones, were distributed to and much appreciated by his many protégés, darling daughters included. The added advantage of these pens, once known as Airmail pens, was the transparent ink tank which allowed him to know when to ask his trusted assistant Srinivasan to refill the pen. The ink stains the pens left on his shirt pockets though were a bane to his rather prim and proper family – the laundering tips we got were aplenty.

On the topic of laundering, Aiyah’s dress sense often mustered criticism from different quarters, but he couldn’t care less – his priorities lay elsewhere. His ‘uniform’, regardless of the occasion was a loose-fitting light coloured tailored bush shirt and a rather baggy pair of pants. Formal occasions and flights called for an ill-fitting jacket and a tie that he struggled with. Evenings and traditional events meant the pants gave way to the lightest of light cotton veshtis (dhothi). His preferred footwear was a rather suspect pair of sandals which gave way, under much duress, to a pair of shoes for formal occasions or sneakers for walking. Given that he was a man of routine, it is with fondness that Bhaskaran recalls the time when Aiyah walked into the Pallavaram office clad in veshti and sandals. With a hearty laugh he told them that was all he had managed to salvage from the Kotturpuram floods of 1985, more upset about the books he had lost than the clothes. I didn’t know about this visit to the factory in the midst of the floods, but click here to read more about his rather interesting encounters with two floods.

Terrible handwriting and dress sense apart, Sashi swears by the on-the-job training he got with Aiyah, whether it was editing or writing press releases. It is with fondness that he recalls the days when the “boss” had all but retired from TTK Maps and taken over as communications chief for the Group. “Mr Muthiah was a tough editor, difficult to please. But he spotted and acknowledged (albeit silently) hard work. Saturday mornings were when Mr Muthiah would arrive at the TTK headquarters on Cathedral Road. My room was on the first floor of the main building, what was once the residence of TT Krishnamachari – a spacious room with a slightly tinted glass door. His driver Malairaj would knock and peep in, to say that ‘Sir’ had arrived.” Apparently, his first port of call, before he began with Sashi was, always, a visit reminiscing with one of his greatest pals, TT Vasu. Much of that reminiscing was captured later in his biography, TT Vasu – The Man Who Could Never Say ‘No’. Visit with TTV done, he’d join Sashi with a cup of black coffee or lemon tea to pore over page layouts. The senior executives of the Group always made time to visit with him and in true journalistic style, none of these conversations were wasted and made their way as ideas for stories in the Spectrum.

Incidentally, in the days after the TTK group when he began Madras Musings, his other protégés fondly recall the number of times they unsuspectingly brought up an interesting topic in discussion with Aiyah, and the next thing they knew, they were asked to write a 1000-word article for Madras Musings, and so it was that a number of them became writers of note. To honour this, the latest issue of Musings features “people from different walks of life, all of whom worked with The Chief, then took their place in the literary world, encouraged on their journey by him... For all of them, he will always be the one who introduced them to the writer within themselves.”

With that we conclude the two-part series dedicated to Aiyah – S Muthiah, the journalist, the editor, the cartographer, the publisher, the mentor. Of course, our stories of him as Aiyah will continue... In the meanwhile, here is the recipe for his favourite breakfast – the fluffy omelette, also known as a soufflé omelette. We hope it makes its way to your Sunday table.

Fluffy Omelette Recipe

Print Recipe

Notes:

1. The recipe below is for 1 person, using 1 egg. While regular omelettes use 2 eggs per person, this one is filling enough that 1 egg per person is sufficient.

2. You can increase the number of portions proportionately; however, as the egg deflates quite fast, do not make more than two portions i.e. 2 omelettes at a time.

3. The masala filling given here was Aiyah's favourite; however, you can substitute with your choice of fillings / toppings - shredded spinach & cheese, sautéed mushrooms, ham & cheese, bacon etc. You can also lightly sauté the masala filling ingredients before adding it to the omelette. The choice is yours.

4. You can use a manual whisk to whisk the egg whites, but if you do have a electric egg beater, you can save yourself an arm workout.

5. I use a 6-inch non-stick or cast iron pan to make the omelette in this recipe - perfect for a 1-egg fluffy omelette. However, if you're making a 2-egg omelette, you may want to use an 8-inch pan.

6. If you're looking for the recipe for roast potatoes, check this recipe out.

Ingredients:

1 egg
Salt to taste (~ 1/4 teaspoon per egg)
Pepper to taste (~1/4 teaspoon per egg)
2 teaspoons butter

Masala filling per egg:

1 tablespoon minced onion
1 tablespoon minced tomato
1 fresh chilli (red / green), minced
1 teaspoon minced coriander leaves

Method:

1. Separate the egg white and yolk – pour the egg white into a stainless steel / glass bowl large enough to whisk in. Make sure there is no trace of yolk in the white, else it will not whisk well.

2. Add a pinch of salt to the egg white and whisk to medium peaks – when you turn the whisk upside down, the peaks should hold for a few seconds. The salt helps to stabilize the egg.

Whisk the egg whites to medium peaks, about 2 minutes if using an electric whisk or 5-10 minutes if doing it manually

3. Mix the egg yolk with another pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper.

4. Heat a pan on low heat and add the butter to the pan. Swirl the pan to coat it with the melted butter.

Add salt and pepper and mix into the egg yolk

Add butter to the pan and heat on low, swirl to coat the pan with the melted butter

5. Gently fold the egg yolk into the egg white so it’s mixed in completely and pour the mixture into the pan. Gently spread the mixture so that the pan is covered.

6. Sprinkle the onion, tomato, chilli and coriander filling over half the omelette mixture.

7. Gently lift one end of the omelette up to see if it’s cooked. If it is, fold the omelette in half and cook.

8. Then flip over on the other side and cook until golden brown.

9. Remove and serve immediately else the omelette will deflate.