Age-old family dish called ‘frittata’

Since childhood, I have devoured on a dish prepared by grandma (dad’s mum) called ‘andyachi bhaji’ (egg vegetable, in marathi). My mother tells me that she inherited this beautiful recipe from her, which has always been cooked in our house, even before I was born. It’s a very simple dish made with veggies and eggs. This is one of the dishes that I would like to call as ‘soul-food’.

Only, recently I figured out what my grandma and mum makes is called ‘frittata’ in other parts of the world. The only difference in the two is the use of the egg. Eggs are beaten well with other ingredients in frittata, whereas eggs are just poured (like half-fry) on our age-old house dish.

Frittata is Italy’s version of an open-face omelette, which does not have a standard recipe (the Spanish have their own version of omellete called tortilla de patatas (Spanish omellete)). There could be hundreds of variations of frittata and you can practically use hams, sausages, mushrooms, different veggies, meat, chicken, anything that can mix itself well with eggs.

I will be trying out a variation soon with mushrooms and sausages and the other one with mince meat and veggies. More on that later.

The way I would describe our version of frittata is simply delicious. It’s extremely simple and easy to make, but an excellent change to regular omelette that we make.

I had never watched it getting prepared. Yesterday, was in the kitchen to see mum make it with my camera, here it goes (with pictures)

Ingredients              

Eggs	3
Onions	2	Sliced finely in circles. We normally cut it quite fine, but fineness is not important
Potatoes	1 (big)
Capsicums	2
Tomatoes	2
Red chili powder		Haven’t put any measurement, because you can be free to use them depending on the spice and flavor
Turmeric powder
Cumin-coriander powder
Salt	To taste

Method

1.    Cut all the veggies in round slices

2.    Mix all the masala powder together and keep separately

3.    Apply the masala powder mixture and salt separately to all the different veggies

4.    Add some oil in a frying pan and let it simmer

5.    Start arranging the veggies with onions forming the bottom part **

6.    Then goes the potatoes, capsicum and tomatoes (in that order)

7.    Cover the pan with a lid and let it simmer for few minutes (for the quantity mentioned 8 to 10 minutes should be good – its time to go to the next step when the potato is properly cooked)

8.    Break eggs and pour them over the veggies, in such a way that no two yolks touch each other

9.    Sprinkle some salt and masala powder on the eggs 

10. Keep this on simmer (again with a lid) but not more than 2 minutes. The idea is to keep the yoke gooey. like it that way # 

cut with the individual portions with the yoke;
see the caramalised onion by the side

Note:

·         The potatoes have to be cooked (that would take the maximum time)

·         # The yokes have to be gooey, so when you cut the yoke while eating, the yellow liquid runs over the dish (I like it this way; but to each his own); suggest  to cook for more time if you don’t like the gooey yoke

·         ** Since the onions form the bottom layer, cooking it for 2 minutes before you start arranging the other veggies would help them caramelize (if you don’t like the sweetened brown onions, avoid this tip)

·         The thinner you cut your veggies, the faster will it cook – we normally slice the onions and potatoes fine and tomatoes and capsicum are slightly thicker

·         This dish is not very spicy; so you can put more spice as per your spice appetite / taste

·         This dish goes well with pao (bakery bread) or slice bread