So far as I know, this recipe doesn't have a name (edit: I have since been informed that this is a fritatta-- thanks, guys!). I learned to make it from my dad, when we were 'camping' in our pre-1900 cabin with no plumbing, heating, or electricity, and a roof full of bats. It tasted delicious, especially after a day of hiking or cross-country skiing.

It's a simple recipe. Almost not worth making a thread about it. But I figured if anyone has any ideas to try with it, or just wants an easy breakfast/brunch that they don't have to watch every second, here it is.

I got up about 4:30 this Sunday afternoon and decided that it was time to try to figure out just how my dad used to make this thick slab of protein and carbs. Rummaging around in the fridge, I got together my ingredients.



Ignore the booze and potato chips, they're not a part of this. Well, maybe the booze... but as you can see, we have:

About a pound of small red potatoes
Half a package of bacon
A small brick of cheese (we're only using half of this)
A dozen eggs (we're only using 7 of them)
Two scallions, with all the dried bits trimmed off
Two shallots
Butter
Sea Salt (in the green bottle, and it doesn't have to be sea salt-- one thing I find is that sea salt is saltier, though, so you might want to use more if you're using iodized salt)
Pepper (in Yasha's terrible battery operated pepper mill. Seriously, what the fuck? I bought it cause I thought it was solid metal, but it turned out to be battery operated with a friggin FLASHLIGHT on the end of it why )

The great thing about this recipe is that you can adjust and substitute almost anything to your taste. If you like a lot of onions, put more onions or oniony-type things in there. If you're a cheese freak, use that whole block. If you like more bacon, hell, go for it. The only thing you should not add more of in this recipe is potato. About a pound will be fine, maybe less if you like less, but not more or else you'll overflow your frying pan and not cook the potatoes all the way through.

The equipment you'll need (not pictured):
One large bowl
One frying pan, ten inches or more diameter (mine is ten inch)
One lid that will fit on the frying pan
One fork
One spatula/scraper/flipper whatever you want to call it, you'll see it later

The first thing you need to do is slice the bacon. You need to get that cooking in the frying pan right away so that you have it cooked but not hard-cooked by the time you put the potatoes in, and there's a nice sheen of grease on the frying pan. You want the heat about halfway up to fry all of this in.



See how it's all stuck together? That's because your friend Yasha is a lazy, lazy person on Sunday afternoons. The other reason to get the bacon cooking right away is because if you're like me, you don't want to have to fuss around trying to make sure the meat isn't clumping up once all the other good stuff goes in there. Cooking it first alleviates this problem.

The next thing you want to do is chop the potatoes. I prefer to cut them into rough cubes, which is just not going to happen if you're using small potatoes, but you can get vaguely cube-shaped things if you slice them in half lengthwise and then across the middle (maybe once more if they're too thick). Don't bother peeling them, it's a waste of time unless you just don't like the texture. Besides, it's more vitamins if you leave the peels on. Or something, I dunno too much about this health stuff.

And then you slice the onions. Since the potatoes are going to take a long time to cook, you can slice the onions any thickness you like. I like to make them pretty thin so that they disperse evenly through the omelette. With thicker slices you'd have a problem making sure the onions are all throughout the dish.



You could probably put the onions and potatoes in the frying pan right away after slicing to save time, but I'm never terribly worried about getting things done on time unless I have company coming. Besides, I needed a nice picture for you.



Now see, that bacon is about as done as we want it. It's starting to cook, but it's still a bit floppy, and it's just starting to brown. And there's the sheen of grease I was talking about. We need that because we're going to add the potatoes and onions. Using the grease instead of butter means the potatoes and onions will be subtly flavored by the bacon, and we all like bacon, right?



Unfortunately, there wasn't quite enough grease from this bacon to fry to potatoes in, so you can see I added a bit of butter. Why no, this isn't a healthy recipe. At this point you want to saute the bacon, onions, and potatoes until everything's starting to brown nicely. Make sure to season them with salt and pepper until they taste right.

A note about seasoning: Whenever you add an ingredient, make sure to add seasoning proportionate to the amount of stuff you added. And taste. It's important to taste, or else you won't know when you've put in too much. This recipe is forgiving because if you add too much salt or pepper at first, you can add less to the eggs later and it will balance out. 



See how the potatoes are starting to turn a nice crackly brown around the edges? That means they're done. I find it's easier to use yellow-fleshed potatoes when you're frying, as they change color more so you can tell when they're cooked. The flesh gets all translucent when they're done. We want these about 3/4 done.



And grate the cheese. You don't really need as much as I have, I just grated all of mine because cheese tastes better when it's grated. I don't know why, I think it's a mind trick.

Now you want to use that bowl we had the potatoes and onions in earlier. Crack the eggs into it, beat them until they're all one color, and season them with more salt and pepper, the same as if you were making scrambled eggs. You want to throw about 2/3 of your grated cheese in now, so that it won't stick together and make clumps when you put it in the frying pan.

I took the frying pan off the heat here, so that nothing would overcook, and then left the burner on a very low heat while nothing was on it. And once the eggs and cheese looked like this...



...I dumped them all in the frying pan and sprinkled the rest of the cheese on top.



At this point, you want to get out that lid and cover these things while they're cooking. Keep it on a very low heat (my burner was at about 2.5) because you don't want the bottom burning.



Don't laugh at me, I don't have a lid that matches that frying pan. I had to steal one from a ceramic pot.

Now you take a break for about 40 minutes. If you have a lot of potatoes, or if they're the kind that take a long time to cook, you may need to leave it for longer. Take a peek in and stick a fork in every so often until it goes through smoothly. I did my laundry during this break so that I don't have to go commando to work tomorrow.

When it's ready to come off the heat, the top should look like this:



...and you should be able to tell that it's cooked by sticking a fork into the middle. If the top of it is liquid, it needs to go in for longer. If it feels like scrambled eggs, it's ready for the next stage.



Which is broiling! Fun fact: In restaurants, they finish off omelettes this way. Broil the top of the omelette thing until it's starting to turn a nice golden brown.



Like this! And we're done! If it's really brown on the bottom, don't worry, it's supposed to be like that. As long as it's not burnt it will taste good.

Serving suggestion:



One pie-shaped slice of omelette thing, one glass of orange juice and sweet, sweet cherry vodka, and a stack of Transmetropolitan comic books provided by Yasha's lovely brother.

So if you have questions, comments, ways to add to this recipe, or results, let me know!

Last edited by Yasha (10-18-2006 09:34:40 PM)