April 25, 2004

Sunday Morning Fritatta

My little breakfast experiment this morning turned out amazingly.

Ingredients

  • 4 eggs (more if you eliminate some yolks to reduce fat/cholesterol)
  • 1/4 - 1/3 cup milk (depending on your tastes)
  • 1/3 each red and yellow bell pepper, shredded into small strips (I used a neat slicer we got for our wedding many years ago which made short work of the peppers)
  • 1 leaf fresh sweet basil
  • 3 leaves fresh lemon basil
  • 1/8 cup chopped sundried tomatoes
  • 1/8 tsp fresh grated lemon peel
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/2 cup feta cheese (I used sheep's milk feta which tasted great)
  • 2 tbsp. shredded parmesan cheese

To Prepare

  1. Mix the eggs and milk in a bowl with a whisk, set aside
  2. Chop/shred/cut/prepare the peppers, sundried tomatoes, lemon zest, and basils and place into a small bowl together (or keep separate if you like that kind of thing)
  3. Turn on the broiler in your oven and make sure the top shelf is on the second level down from the top — you don't want the eggs too close to the heat source.
  4. Heat the olive oil in a medium frying pan on medium-high heat and then add the peppers, sundried tomatoes, lemon zest, and the basils. Sautée until heated through and the peppers are limp.
  5. Pour in the eggs and leave sit for a few moments (resist the urge to stir everything in the pan)
  6. When the eggs have set enough to make it possible, lift up the edges and tilt the pan so the uncooked eggs on top flow under the flap you lifted. Do this repeatedly until there is no more uncooked eggs that actually run when you tilt the pan.
  7. Pour the cheeses on top of the egg mixture in the pan evenly all around
  8. Move the pan to the broiler and leave the oven door slightly ajar (we have pans with plastic handles so we have to be careful that the pan is far enough in that the top of the eggs cooks and the cheese melts but the handle doesn't melt. So far, it's worked out for us.) Cook until the cheese is melted and it just starts to brown on top. If you can rotate the fritatta in the pan so the cooking is more even, great. Otherwise, accept that the back part will cook darker than the front half.
  9. Remove from the broiler and slide the fritatta onto a cutting board and let sit for a few minutes. Then cut with a pizza cutter into 8 slices, serve and enjoy.

Be careful to use only a little lemon zest. It's pungent stuff and the point here is to add a nice lemon flavor to this, not to make this a lemon fritatta. If you do this right, you'll notice the lemon flavor as a nice accent rather than a dominant flavor.

Posted by andyjw at April 25, 2004 11:59 AM | TrackBack