Food Matters: More-Vegetable Less-Egg Frittata
20 Sep
This recipe, from Bittman’s new Food Matters Cookbook, is typical of the book’s style and message: subverting the usual egg to vegetable ratio, it’s healthier than your usual frittata, but it’s also tastier and heartier. Generally, a frittata (like, say, the frittata in How to Cook Everything) has a lot of eggs and usually some milk or cream, plus some vegetables for flavoring. The Food Matters frittata, however, uses two cups of vegetables to every egg. Just enough to bind and let the other ingredients shine.
You start by sautéing onion in some olive oil (there’s a lot more olive oil than butter in this book, naturally), then adding a ton of whatever vegetables you like. Cook those for as long as it takes–couple minutes for greens like spinach, longer for denser veggies like zucchini or potatoes or beets–and then add two or three eggs, distribute them evenly, and lower the heat until the eggs are just set. I like to speed this up by sticking the pan under the broiler at the very end for a minute or so, to quickly set the top.
This dish is a powerhouse, and I’ve made it about a dozen times since the one pictured here, which used sauteed peppers, onion, zucchini, a bit of Italian sausage and pesto sauce, all leftovers from dinner the night before. I ate half the frittata for dinner, then the leftovers for breakfast. This dish is versatile, both in when you eat it and what goes in it. Since first making it, I’ve gotten into the habit of doing this with fewer veggies and just one egg–a perfect breakfast for one that takes fairly little time and concentration. I like doing it with watercress, which you can brown in the pan just a bit before adding the eggs, or tomatoes, which soften and enhance the sweetness of the eggs.
