Saturday, January 26, 2008

Guest Post: Irvin's Frittata (with video!)


My buddy Irvin and I went on a man-date and saw Cloverfield. It's better than I thought it was going to be. However, if you become nauseous when you view shaky camera work, avoid this movie. Afterwards, we didn't know what to do so, naturally, we went to a bar to talk things over. A few beers later, we started to feel hungry and decided to chef up dinner. Since we were next door to Irvin's apartment, he shouldered the cooking duties.

He decided to make a frittata. Click the link if you're unsure what a frittata is.
Most of the ingredients...not shown, garlic.
Chop, chop chop.
So here's what goes into the frittata:
5 stems of rapini (sliced into 1/2 inch pieces)
5 cloves of garlic (minced)
1/2 an onion (cut into half-moons)
7 brussels sprouts (quartered)
4 small potatoes cut up into rapini sized pieces
A dozen (???don't really remember...we started with 8 then added a few more) eggs
4 oz of cubed pancetta.
a handful of chopped, pitted olives
cheese for grating, whatever you have on hand will be fine.

Here's Irvin explaining the origins of the dish.

Soooo, do I still sound like a complete nut?
Here was my contribution...crack and beat the eggs.
Season well (salt and pepper) as the eggs will be the seasoning for nearly everything else.

Time to start the cooking...
Add a touch of oil to the pan. Saute pancetta, onions and potatoes...cook over low heat until the potatoes are partially cooked through:
No cooking is complete without a beverage by your side...sparkling sake:


Once the onions/potatoes are at the desired state of doneness, toss in the brussels sprouts, garlic and rapini and let that saute for 5 or so minutes. You just wanna pre-cook the veggies because the egg cooks rather quickly.

Add the beaten eggs:
Cook until the eggs are partially set on the bottom...use lowish heat because you don't want the bottom to burn.

Grate the cheese over the top of the frittata
and place into a pre-heated oven. I don't remember what temperature but, if you did it correctly, the bottom and middle of the frittata should already be cooked through. You are just cooking the top 1/3.

Finished frittata:
Irvin checking to see if it was cooked through:
It wasn't so Irvin chucked it back into the oven.

When it is cooked through, give it 10 minutes to rest. Cut into wedges and serve. Irvin likes his with warmed tortillas.
Mmmmm, monch, monch, monch...

1 comment:

irvin said...

In my, and uhh, defense, I was loaded.