frittata

Sauté sliced mushrooms in butter, seasoned with salt and fresh cracked peppercorns. Add a little more butter to the pan and pour beaten egg over the mushrooms. Top with very thinly sliced Fruillano cheese, small leaves of oregano and torn basil. Cook over medium heat until the bottom sets and then place in a preheated oven or under a broiler to finish cooking.

Before serving, add a few more whole oregano leaves and torn basil, season with salt and fresh cracked black peppercorn.

Italian food, basically eggs beaten together with grated Parmigiano cheese, grated bread plus a taste source (and salt and pepper). The mix is then cooked in a pan with butter or oil.
Flipping a big frittata is a major stunt, better accomplished with the help of the pan cover, and absolutely no interference by bystanders.

The taste source mentioned above can be almost anything: basil leaves, sausage, artichokes, tomatoes (sautéed before).
One great recycling recipe is the pasta frittata (frittata di pasta), where leftover pasta with sauce is roughly minced and used as the taste source. The result can occasionally be better than the original pasta, although it is bad form to tell the cook so.

I winged this recipe for lunch last weekend when we had nothing edible in the house besides some wrinkly bell peppers, a few slices of old chorizo sausage, and eggs. If you're being a purist, the chorizo should be salami or some other Italian spicy dried sausage, and the peppers should be cooked separately in advance, then beaten into the egg mixture. But I'm no purist, so here goes:

To feed 2 hungry people or as a snack/starter for 4, you will need:

• 1 red and 1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced fairly large
• 1 medium sized onion, diced
• 3-5 garlic cloves, minced or diced thinly
• Diced chorizo or other dry sausage, between .25 cup and a full cup
• .5 teaspoon paprika
• .25 teaspoon mild chilli powder, or to taste
• .5 teaspoon mixed Italian herbs, Herbs de Provence or any combination of dried herbs you like, pounded well into a smooth powder in a pestle and mortar
• 5 medium or 6 small eggs
• Salt n' Peppa
• 1-2 tablespoons olive oil

1. In a non-stick skillet, heat the olive oil for about 1 minute and add the onions. Fry gently until glassy and beginning to go soft, then add the garlic and fry for another 2-3 minutes.

2. Add the peppers to the pan, stir well, reduce the heat and let them fry slowly for 10-15 minutes or until soft and just beginning to go brown. Stir occasionally, and add the spices and herbs, as well as about half as much seasoning as you think the whole recipe needs - the other half will go in the eggs.

3. When the peppers are almost cooked, add the sausage and stir in evenly. Beat the eggs in a bowl with a bit more salt and pepper, then pour them over the smoothed-out pepper mixture. Cover with a lid and cook on a meduim heat until the top of the frittata becomes opaque. At this stage you can either carefully turn the frittata over with a fish slice, or leave it to cook for a couple more minutes - it will be cooked through, but of uneven colour.

That's it - this is dead easy, quick, healthy, relatively low fat and cheap on the ingredients. It's also surprisingly complex in terms of flavours and can easily be presented as quite a high-end starter. Serve with crusty rolls and/or fresh salad.