How to make Chinese omelettes with pork, shrimp and snow peas – an elevated egg dish

I love the versatility of eggs, which can be fast and cheap or time-consuming and luxurious, depending on how they’re prepared.

In the first category, a fried egg – cooked so it’s puffed and frilly and crisp around the edges – on top of hot rice, then drizzled with aged soy sauce or oyster sauce, takes about three minutes to cook and is a delicious lunch. Or there’s the Cantonese family dinner staple of scrambled eggs with tomato sauce.

At the other end of the scale is slowly scrambled whisked eggs, cooked with plenty of butter, and topped with a large spoonful of caviar; or egg whites with bird’s nest, steamed in soup spoons, then pan-fried until crisp.

Chinese omelettes with pork, shrimp and snow peas

This dish, if served in a Chinese restaurant, would cost a little more than other egg dishes, not because the ingredients are expensive (they’re not), but because it’s a bit fiddly to cook – although not difficult. The egg is pan-fried into small, thin omelettes before being folded over a meaty filling.

If you want to get more luxurious, substitute cooked crabmeat for the shrimp: just steam a crab (a flower crab would be ideal), then, when it’s cool enough to handle, extract the meat from the shells. And if you can’t be bothered making individual omelettes, simply scramble the eggs until they’re softly set, then serve the pork mixture on top.

For the omelettes:
4 large eggs
½ tsp fine sea salt
Cooking oil, as necessary