Thai-Style Omelets (Khai Jiao, Khai Jeow, Khai Jiaw, ไข่เจียว)

Imagine a bowl of soft and fluffy Jasmine rice. Perfectly cooked. Unadorned. Not piping hot; just a tad warmer than room temperature. Imagine a Thai omelet, a round of soft and fluffy eggy layers, hot and puffy off the wok, with its edges crispy and light as clouds over the rice. Then imagine a blessed anointing of Thai Sriracha** on top of it all ... My heartbeats are audible as I'm typing this.

From the way I've described Khai Jiaw or Khai Jeow, Khai Jiow, Khai Jiao (ไข่เจียว ) above, you can see that Thai-style omelets (or omelettes? -- maybe I should confuse everybody by alternating between both variants as well as the various Thai spellings in this post?) are so drastically different from their French counterparts. Actually, other than the fact that both are made out of eggs, they have very little in common both in the way they're made or served. While French omelettes are supposed to be light-colored and soft and creamy all over, Thai omelets are supposed to be fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside (particularly around the edges).

The hot oil ensures that while the edges are light and crispy, the inside is soft and creamy.
Then again, as is the case with any given dish, different people have different preferences. My grandmother loved her Khai Jiow soft and a bit oily (but then she liked her coffee at room temperature too ...). For one of my cousins, Khai Jiao is not authentic unless it has thinly-sliced shallots added. Some people add herbs or meat (fresh oyster, ground pork, crab meat, etc.) to their Thai omelettes. I like my Khai Jiao plain. And since this is my blog (heh), crispy plain Thai-style omelet is featured here.

Here's how you make a single serving of crispy Khai Jiaw.
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Before you do anything, scoop some steamed Jasmine rice onto a serving plate. The omelet cooks very quickly and when it goes out of the wok, it needs a place to land immediately.

Crack two large eggs into a bowl that is big enough to hold twice the volume of the eggs.

Add to the eggs a couple of drops of lemon or lime juice (white or cider vinegar works as well). The acidity will help tenderize the finished dish; you don't want a tough omelette.

Add also to the eggs one teaspoon of fish sauce.

Fish sauce ... I know not all of us dig the stuff, but trust me on this -- once the eggs are cooked, you're not going to smell or taste the fishiness. (So far, only one of my fish sauce hater friends has managed to detect the smell, but then his nose works like that of a trained Beagle.) If you absolutely can't find or stand fish sauce, or if you want to make this strictly vegetarian, use salt, to taste. Khai Jiaw flavored with salt isn't as good as one flavored with fish sauce, in my opinion. But compared to soy sauce, salt is the lesser evil. I think soy sauce completely ruins what would have been a good Thai omelet. Not only does its dark color mar the bright golden hue, Khai Jiaw with soy sauce also tastes foreign to my Thai palate.

Meanwhile, get your wok ready. An 8-inch nonstick wok works best here. Heat up about 3/4 cup of any bland vegetable oil with high smoke point in a wok over high heat. Ideally, the lipid of choice is lard as it ensures crispiness. If cooking with rendered pork fat is something your heart yearns for, go for it. But for those who prefer cooking with plant-based lipids, fret not, crispiness can also be achieved with the tips and tricks included here.

The trick is to use lots of oil and high heat. When done right, the omelet won't be oily at all. Thai omelettes are not exactly deep-fried like donuts or fried chicken; they are, for lack of a better term, flash-fried. The egg mixture puffs, crisps, and browns up instantly once it hits the oil. In just a matter of seconds, it goes out of the wok. For this single serving, if both sides of your omelet do not crisp or brown up properly in less than a minute, either the oil isn't hot enough or you get scared and put in less oil than instructed.

Beat the egg mixture with a fork or a small whisk until it is frothy. Your eggs don't need to be beaten as if you were making sponge cake or sabayon; you just want to get the eggs to be light and airy.

Beat in one tablespoon of rice flour (potato starch or cornstarch works as well); make sure the flour is completely interspersed with the egg mixture (lumps are bad, really bad). The flour is what makes the edges of the omelet nice and crispy. A lot of people skip this step which is fine; this is just one of those tricks of the trade I have learned from chatting with street vendors. I like the crispy edges, so this is what I always do.

Once the oil starts smoking, it is ready. Add the frothy egg mixture into the hot oil and see how it puffs up before your eyes. If you crave drama in the kitchen, hold the egg bowl about a foot or so above the wok and pour. This will create the milk crown effect which causes your Khai Jiaw to develop jagged edges and asymmetry which lead to more pronounced inner layers and peripheral crispiness. No hardcore splattering should happen, but to be on the safe side, you may want to stand back.

Count to 20 Mississippis, flip the omelette once (don't worry if you mess it up while flipping; anything that creates jagged edges and asymmetry works well here), and count another 20 Mississippis. Take the omelet out of the pan and place it on top of the rice. Drizzle some Sriracha sauce on top if desired and consume immediately.

**Pace David T. Edge who has told us that Sriracha is "properly pronounced SIR-rotch-cha." Sriracha is a Thai word which happens to have only one legitimate pronunciation, "See-ra-cha " in the Thai language and all of the sub-dialects therein.