le blog de tranny

I realized that though I’ve written about frittatas on here before and make them all the time, I’ve never actually posted a recipe. I think I never bothered because I figured it was too simple a dish to be worth mentioning, but I realized as of late that that’s not necessarily true. I had been confident that I, and anyone who set their mind to it, could make a perfect frittata with minimal effort, until the rekindling of an old rivalry cast doubt on my former self-assurance. Char and I both love to cook and both have significant others who love to eat, so we decided to have a duel of sorts, but were unsure as to what the battleground should be. We had to limit ourselves to one dish given capacity constraints in my kitchen, and we thought that a Top Chef-esque showdown might be too open-ended (the dishes needed be comparable), while an Iron Chef-esque showdown could too easily lead to an uneven playing field (he doesn’t really cook seafood, while I have very limited experience cooking duck and pork).

After Annabel mentioned a frittata he’d made once, I knew that had to be it — a frittata-off. Of course he was game, because he’s cooked many frittatas in his day, as have I. But once I set to it I realized there were so many ways in which such a simple dish could be.. imperfect. The right cooking vessel, the right balance of cheese, eggs and milk (my preference is to use milk because I always have it on hand while Char is a proponent of using cream), the right timing — all of these things are required to produce a frittata with a lovely fluffy texture that is nice and thick and not burnt on the bottom. Or at least these were the thoughts that flooded my head once we started cooking. The funny thing is I still don’t really have precise measurements for this recipe, even after my frittata-making abilities were closely scrutinized, mainly by me.

Since we had limited information about each other’s technique, the strategy lay in our respective selections of ingredients, which would not be revealed until the morning of the frittata-off. I decided to do a variation on the frittata I made last Easter when we were living in the Oakland house, which had pancetta, asparagus, green garlic, chives, parsley and parmesan. Falletti does not have green garlic. So I made one with pancetta, leek, regular garlic, asparagus, parsley and parm this time.

Char’s shtick seems to be extravagance with fats and rich flavors, so he opted to make a potato and leek frittata with crumbled bacon and two types of cheeses – parmesan and gruyere. I have to hand it to him — using gruyere was a really nice variation and added great flavor. I had never considered using a hard cheese other than parmesan in my frittatas, for whatever reason.

Note that we both chose to use leeks and cured pork belly, because those are essential to pretty much any frittata. But in spite of these same ingredients choices we still ended up making frittatas that were quite different. Even though I used a stick of butter in mine, mine was deemed the “healthy” option, while Brent’s had not a single fleck of green.

It was KZ who first made me a frittata and then later gave me the recipe while I was abroad, by posting it on my Facebook wall. I’ve used some variation of this recipe ever since. This is how I made my contender for our frittata-off. If you want Brent’s recipe, you’re going to have to ask him. His was more layered like a tart.

- Choose a pan that is oven-safe and not too large. You don’t want the frittata to be too thin.
- Make the egg mixture: beat a dozen eggs with (1/2 a cup?) of milk, season with s&p, add about 1/3 a cup of grated parmesan. Preheat the broiler.
- Fry the pancetta or bacon to desired crispness. Set aside. Pour off some of the fat but keep most of it.
- Saute the asparagus and leeks with garlic and butter in the pork fat pan. Season with s&p.
- Once the vegetables are almost cooked through (you don’t want to overcook the asparagus – if it’s bright green and still a little crunchy it’s the right time), add a little more butter and oil to the pan to coat the bottom (if needed), let it heat up a bit, then add the egg mixture. Give it a quick stir to let some of the eggs run to the bottom of the pan. Keep over medium-high heat until the eggs are just set on the top. If I had to give one tip on making frittatas it would be to watch it like a hawk, rotating the pot so it cooks evenly and giving it a gentle shake every once in a while. If you smell burning, rotate the pot, move it to the side a bit, turn down the heat, whatever you have to do. This is obviously not an exact science.
- Once the eggs are almost set but just a little runny on the top, pop it in the broiler to finish off the top. This should take 5 minutes at most. When you take it out, the top should be slightly puffed up and just starting to brown. Immediately top it with more freshly grated parm so that it melts. Let it cool for a little while before serving. Top with fresh parsley.

Char’s frittata came out looking like a double cheese pizza from Pizza Hut, but it was deliciously decadent and I must confess, slightly thicker than mine (if you’re into that).

He served us a few pieces then, suddenly and inexplicably, Char’s frittata committed suicide. I laughed while Annabel hunched over in mourning.

At least I got my piece! (BTW, in the end only P and A were present for the tasting, so the competition would’ve most certainly been a draw had anyone vocalized their vote. Or else they would’ve been in the dog house.)

LOL.