Frittata

This is a great recipe to clear out your fridge. If you have some veggies you need to eat soon before they go bad, this is it. I had some button mushrooms, tomato, spinach, and bell pepper that I needed to use. I was tired of eating mushroom, spinach, tomato salad so I decided to make a frittata instead. I managed to use up all the mushroom and spinach I had for the recipe. I always have onions and potatoes in my kitchen because they keep forever. Carrots and peppers are good vegetables to keep in the fridge also because they last a long time in the refrigerator. If you looked in my fridge, aside for the milk and eggs, you’d think I was a vegetarian. Most of my fridge is stocked with vegetables. The majority of my protein intake comes from fast food. Yay for tacos!

The only thing I had to go out and buy were the chives and ricotta cheese. I’m always afraid of buying herbs because I never use all of it and end up having to throw them away. Now, I layer them on paper towels, put them in a baggie, and freeze them. I haven’t tried using the ones I’ve frozen but I’ll find out if it works or not.

This is my first time making a frittata. It’s basically an omelette, but instead of cooking small 2-3 egg portions, you fill an entire pan about inch thick and finish it off under the broiler. It’s almost like a quiche. I guess a frittata is a cross between an omelette and a quiche?

Ingredients:

3 tbsp oil
2 small potatoes, cubed
1 medium onion, diced
half of a green bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 cup of sliced mushrooms
1 medium tomato, seeded and diced
1 cup spinach
6 eggs
1/4 cup of milk
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
a few sprigs of chives
salt and pepper
*you may also want to add some protein like ham or sausage
*depending on the size of the pan, you may need to add more eggs

First, heat the oil in a pan on high heat and brown the potatoes. Once the potatoes are browned (You don’t want to cook them since we still have a long way to go until the dish is done. You don’t want mushy potatoes. We’re not making mashed potatoes here.), add the onions and bell peppers. Once those get a bit soft, add the mushrooms. Make sure the heat is high when the mushrooms are put in. You get a slap of umami flavor when they have a nice sear on the outside. Once the mushrooms have a nice sear, add the tomatoes and spinach. Now scramble the eggs and milk together. When the spinach has wilted, season with some salt and pepper. You want the vegetable mixture to be a bit salty, since we’re going to be adding eggs. Now, turn the heat down to medium and pour the eggs and milk mixture into the pan. Let this site until the eggs are about halfway cooked. At this point, top the dish with some chives and spoonfuls of ricotta cheese. Then, place the pan under a broiler until the top of the frittata is cooked.

Lots of veggies. You can see that this is a healthful dish, aside from the cholesterol from the eggs but it’s not too bad.

What’s taters? PO-TAY-TOES. >_>

Some ‘shroom for some umami.

I add the tomatoes last because I don’t want them to cook too much.

Add eggs, stir this around alittle bit then don’t touch!

Once the eggs have set to this texture, sprinkle some chives on top.

And add ricotta cheese. You can lick the spoon after too. I don’t know if anyone agrees with me but ricotta cheese tastes like ice cream.

Here’s the finished product. I ate half of that…

Also, remember that metal has a high heat capacity. That means even when it has been sitting on the stove cooling after coming out from under the broiler, it’s still hot enough to burn you. As much lab experience and heat transfer knowledge I have, I still tried to grab the handle to serve myself some frittata and proceeded to burn myself. On a related note, last week I went to retrieve an aluminum pan from a 350 F oven that had a sample I was drying for Unit Operations Lab. I thought, “Hey 350 F isn’t that hot, I’ll just grab it.” Wrong. What was I thinking? I bake cookies at that temperature! 350 F is 177 C, 77 C more than boiling water. So yeah, I have no common sense.