The Internet Is Officially Obsessed with This “Tornado” Omelette Technique

In the grand, sprawling world of internet viral videos, few genres are so consistently, beautifully mesmerizing as watching the different ways eggs are made around the world. Previously we’ve ooh-ed and aah-ed over the Indian bread omelette, the ramen-omelette hybrid called “ramlet,” and omelettes made in a mug, a microwave, and a plastic bag.

This week, the latest of the ilk to storm Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube, comes from Korea and is called the tornado omelette. 

Called the tornado omurice, the egg part is just one element of a larger dish, starting just before the two-minute mark in this video (and, if you keep watching, a second dish called white magma omurice). It doesn’t require any special equipment, but probably does take a fair amount of practice: the person cooking pours the whisked egg into a very hot pan, and using chopsticks, begins twirling in the center just as the egg begins to cook. As the egg cooks, it joins the spiral created by the twisting motion, eventually gathering up all of the egg as it has just barely cooked.

Like so many of these dishes, it looks simple at first glance, but watching closely reveals a practiced hand knowing exactly how to draw the chopsticks from across the pan to just an inch apart before twisting, when to jiggle the pan, and how to rotate it. It seems as if the pan does almost as much moving as the chopsticks when it comes to creating the egg vortex. 

The result has the wrinkly swirl of a fabric flower. It’s then draped over the rice and sauced. The poster of the video helpfully tells us exactly where to find the dish — at a street food stand in Seoul — and how much it costs ($7.40 U.S.). Of course, from here in the U.S., we might just need to watch again so we can figure out how to do it ourselves.