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.

Okay, so, I’m pretty into this idea of, instead of having a sauce, having a broth (or brodo as I’ve douchily been calling it lately). This brodo concept is closely tied to meals I’ve eaten at nicer restaurants for one (obvi), and my embarrassingly recent realization of what deglazing actually is for another. Plus you know, nowadays when I buy a $5 bottle of wine at the corner store for the purpose of cooking with, I’m compelled to use the rest of it for cooking because I can’t bring myself to drink it (to think — I now have standards as to what I imbibe!). A far cry from my drinking standards as recently as a year ago, that’s fo sho. To cut to the chase, I now present to you a tale of two brodos — one red and one white.

The red one was born first, out of an attempt on my part to fancy up a simple, hearty and not terribly sophisticated dish — cannelloni. At least that was the original idea. Kale cannelloni in a tomato brodo with sauteed thick wedges of portobello mushroom (I had to get the meaty mouth-feel somehow). I even wrote out a recipe, based on bits and pieces of other recipes that I lifted from the internet. But I ended up changing my mind last minute when I realized that I still had leftover wonton wrappers. So Nina and I instead made dino kale tortellini with portobello mushroom in tomato brodo. Sigh — I would not recommend making tortellini out of wonton wrappers. The texture and flavor are a bit off — the dough is thinner and less starchy or egg-y or something. The final product was very much dino kale wontons in tomato brodo. Which is quite funny and worked in its own weird way — I guess I could pass it off as some kind of fusion interpretation (wonton soup but with Italian flavors?) but this was definitely not my original intent. Anyway no harm done — just use real pasta dough or make cannelloni if you try this — the recipe is essentially the same.

Kale-Stuffed Pasta with Portobello Mushrooms in Tomato Brodo

You need:
- parmesan cheese
- lasagna noodles or other stuffable pasta
- 1 container ricotta
- 1 large can diced tomatoes
- 1 container chicken stock
- kale, stemmed and torn
- portabello mushrooms, stems separated and reserved
- fresh thyme
- white wine
- 1 shallot, medium slice
- garlic, minced
- 1 small onion (or less), small dice

- Preheat the oven to 350 F if you’re making cannelloni, cook the pasta al dente etc.

Make the pasta filling:
- Wash and chop the kale (if you’re making cannelloni a rough chop is fine; if you’re making tortellini you’ll probably need to chop the kale pretty well before you cook it, and then super finely after you cook it). Saute it with a *very scant* amount of olive oil with finely diced onion (very finely for tortellini) and minced garlic. Season with s&p.
- Once kale is cooked, chopped to desired fineness, then cooled a bit, add the ricotta and a good amount of grated parmesan. You can eyeball the proportions — I know I did! Mix well then assemble your tortellini or cannelloni.

Make the brodo:
- Mince the mushroom stems. Saute them with the shallot and some garlic in olive oil until browned. Add ½ a cup or however much white wine and scrape up the brown bits while on high heat. Add the broth and the diced tomatoes with their juice. Mash up the tomatoes and add whole sprigs of thyme. Season with s&p and simmer for a good while, until it reduces by half or however much you want.
- Strain the brodo when you plate the pasta.

Cook the pasta:
- If you’re doing cannelloni make sure you layer the bottom of the baking tray with some brodo and that you moisten the top with either olive oil or brodo so it doesn’t dry out. (Bake covered, seam side down, for 45 minutes. Or if you’re doing tortellini boil those bitches then set them aside, not overlapping because you don’t want em to stick.)

Do the mushrooms:
Take the thick slices of portobello mushroom cap and brown them on each side in butter. Season with s&p. When almost done cooking, throw in some minced garlic and toss the mushrooms with the garlic for a minute or two.

Arrange the plates with brodo as the base, followed by the mushies then the cannelloni or tortellinis. Pour brodo over the top right before serving. (Did you notice that if you substitute veg broth for chicken broth, this entree is vegetarian? Maybe I should start having a “vegetarian” tag, since I now actually have more than one vegetarian-adaptable recipe on here.)

(Do you like my subtle garnish? I think it looks like a little shrub lol.)

Olive Oil Poached Cod in Carrot and Potato Brodo with Parsley Salad

The other day I was watching the Anthony Bourdain holiday special, where he and his buddies cook up the greater part of a cow. In one scene he prepares this roasted bone marrow appetizer, and he makes a parsley salad with whole leaves of parsley picked from their stems, mixed up with capers, shallot, lemon juice and olive oil, to go with it. I loved the idea of a salad like this, because when you think about it, the flavor of whole leaves of parsley isn’t really that intense compared to say, arugula, so why not make it the base ingredient of a salad? I thought it’d be a great topping for some olive oil poached cod (which I’d been itching to attempt since I got my oil thermometer), but parsley salad works as a starter too.

I wanted the cod to sit in a clear, light brodo (like this olive oil poached cod I had at Commis a while back). My plan was to add some carrots and potatoes to the broth, to get some aromatic action going and to thicken the broth a bit with the starch from the potatoes. Then once it’d reduced sufficiently, I’d decide whether or not to puree the vegetables. I ended up pureeing the vegetables with my immersion blender, turning the broth into a really smooth puree (so, not clear at all basically). I ended up adding more chicken broth after I did this because I wanted it to be more broth-like. So maybe I should really call this a puree — but whatever, semantics. It’s a brodo or it’s a puree depending on how much broth you add/whether you decide to puree the vegetables.

You need: (for two peeps)
*for the fish*
- 2 cod fillets (In retrospect I would’ve gotten rock cod or halibut instead of black cod aka butterfish. Olive oil poaching makes the fish really tender and moist which butterfish already is.. and I was left wishing the end product was slightly firmer rather than melting on the fork before it even reached my mouth. I also would’ve gone for thicker fillets. Should’ve done my research.)
- olive oil (I cheated and mixed in some canola oil because I didn’t want to ass rape our olive oil reserves. I mean if you have mostly olive oil the flavor is still there.. I maintain that this is fine if you’re working with extra virgin olive oil which I was — but if I had to do this again I would get cheaper non-extra virgin olive oil at the store and just used 100% of that.)
*for the brodo/puree*
- 1 small bunch of carrots, peeled and diced
- 2 red potatoes, peeled and diced
- 1/2 a shallot, minced
- garlic, minced
- chicken broth
- white wine
- butter and/or bacon fat
- thyme (I used dried but fresh is obvi preferable.)
*for the parsley salad*
- Italian parsley
- capers
- 1/2 a shallot, minced (the other half of the one used for the brodo)
- extra virgin olive oil
- lemon juice or white wine vinegar

[Bacon fat and yellow carrots.]

Make the brodo:
- Saute the shallot, carrots and potatoes in melted bacon fat and butter. (I just happened to have some reserved bacon fat from the last time I cooked bacon and it’s really proved indispensable so far. For example, with this preparation, I cooked the vegetables in bacon fat because I needed something to deglaze. I’m sure it would kind of work with just butter but honestly if you don’t have bacon fat on hand I’d either fry up some fresh bacon and maybe even throw bits of that in the broth or I wouldn’t bother.) Season with s&p and fresh or dried thyme.
- Once the vegetables have browned and there’s a good layer of brown bits at the bottom of the pot, add some white wine and scrape up the brown bits on high heat. Once I did this it was lookin’ pretty good and gravy-like.
- Add the chicken broth and more white wine if you please.
- Simmer until reduced by about half. Allow to cool for a hot sec. Season to taste. Puree the vegetables with an immersion blender if you want. You could also try pureeing half the vegetables and leaving half of them in chunks. Perhaps this is what I should have done. (If the puree is too thick add more broth and bring to a simmer again.)

[A lovin' spoonful of bacon fat.]

[Pre-pureeing.]

Cook the fish:
- Season the fish on both sides with s&p.
- In a pot, heat up enough olive oil to cover the fish to around 120 degrees F.
- Submerge the fish in the oil for 3-5 minutes or until just cooked through.

Make the parsley salad:
- Rinse and dry the parsley. Pick some leaves from their stems.
- Mix the parsley leaves in a bowl with some coarsely chopped capers and finely minced shallot.
- Just before serving, toss the parsley salad with olive oil and lemon juice or white wine vinegar. Season with black pepper.

Plate the cod on top of some broth/puree. Top with parsley salad.

Mmmm but you know what’s especially awesome about this broth/puree business? This morning I heat up the leftover puree on the stove and whisked in some butter, cornmeal and freshly grated parm. Voila — breakfast polenta/grits type thing! Eaten with Italian pork sausages and a poached egg (which I kind of botched.. should have left it in longer — it was my first time poaching eggs, after all), it was the best thing ever. (Another testament to the usefulness of bacon fat — I cooked the sausages in some!)