Instead of the traditional round shape, how about a rectangular frying pan designed especially for making omelettes or grilled cheese sandwiches?
The Egg Pan is made by Paderno, a Canadian company based on Prince Edward Island.
With its stainless steel body and handle, this approximately 5″ x 6-1/2″ (13 x 16 cm) frying pan can go from stove top into the oven. The non-stick surface means little or no oil is needed for cooking, and there’s less chance of food sticking (making cleaning the pan a breeze!). And, with a slightly sloped edge on one end, omelettes or fried eggs should slip out of the pan and onto a plate with ease.
While a pan of this shape is hardly necessary for making omelettes, or fried or scrambled eggs (the conventionally-shaped round frying pan works very well for making all these and more, thank you very much!), cooking-in-the-rectangular instead of cooking-in-the-round is a nice change of pace shape. Most likely though, this is a pan for the true egg lover, or someone who really loves to cook and has room in her kitchen for the non-essentials!
I recently discovered the Egg Pan pan at a Home Hardware store in Kitchener. It was regularly priced at $79.99, but marked down to $29.99! No, Paderno isn’t cheap. Yes, the high quality of this cookware and its 25 year warranty does put it ahead of many other brands, but I still couldn’t see paying nearly $80 for a specialty pan such as this one. I wonder if the discounted price means Paderno is clearing out its stock of Egg Pans.
I decided to put the pan to the test to see how well it worked for making an omelette. I thought it performed as well as a round non-stick frying pan. As the egg cooked, I used a thin spatula to gently push the cooked portions to the centre of the pan, tilting the pan to let the uncooked egg flow in to fill the space and cook.
Eggs cook in the rectangular omelette pan.
When making omelettes I like to use a frying pan with a sloped side so I can easily slide my spatula or flipper in under the cooked egg and so the finished omelette can slip out of the pan easily. A positive design feature of the Egg Pan is the sloped end of the frying pan.
To fill the omelette, you can place the ingredients on the end closest to the handle, fold the other half of the omelette over top, then back the omelette out of the pan or flip it over onto its other side. Or, place the fillings on the end near the sloped side, fold the other half of the omelette over top, tilt the pan and the omelette should “fall” onto a waiting plate.
Toppings are added to the nearly cooked omelette.
The finished tomato and cheese omelette!
Paderno sells an assortment of sizes and styles of frying pans including a 6-inch (15 cm) Egg Toss Pan perfect for frying one egg. There’s also a Crepe Pan and a couple 5-cup Egg Poachers. Visit Paderno’s website to find out what cookware and bakeware is available. The Egg Pan was not available to purchase online when I checked today but the website also lists where Paderno products are sold in Canada so you can check if its in stock at a store near you.
Filed under: Egg Cooking Equipment, For Egg Lovers, Frying pans/skillets | Tagged: frying pans, omelettes, Paderno
