While I’m doing a lot of cooking while we’re on a break from our San Francisco Food Tour of North Beach\Little Italy and Chinatown, I’m ending with a lot of leftovers in the refrigerator. The solution for me is to make a frittata. A frittata is basically an open face omelet. In the simplest terms, it is basically egg poured over the ingredients and then baked in the oven. In my case, I like to start it on the stove and then finish it in the oven.
The first thing I like to sauté whatever ingredients (leftovers) that I’m and going to use in a skillet, except for the eggs, onions, and garlic. After they are done, I’ll put them aside in a bowl. Next, I’ll sauté the onions and garlic in some olive oil. I like doing it this way, so the flavor of the onions and garlic don’t get lost. Then, I’ll whisk together some eggs and herbs and spices and whatever cheese that I like. Usually, about eight eggs are enough. After I add the ingredients back into the skillet, I’ll pour the egg mixture over everything and mix everything together.
After I get some nice browning on the bottom of the frittata, I’ll finish it off in about 375-degree oven until it all solidifies, usually about 20 minutes or so. You can tell when it done when it starts to firm up and the middle is no longer wet.
On our San Francisco Food Tour, it’s all fun to see what creation each of our stops comes up with every day. In their case, it’s what came in that day, in other words, what was in the market that day. In my case, it’s the clearing out the refrigerator for a frittata.