Asparagus Frittata - Cooking Italy 14

I'm not exactly sure why, but for some reason I had never before made a frittata - I think it may have had something to do with never owning a non-stick pan and being afraid that it wouldn't come out of the pan.  Well, recently I decided to invest in one and I have to say it's been life changing - why did I never do this before?!  So now in the possession of a non-stick pan, I was pretty excited when a recent assignment for the Cooking Italy group was to make a frittata.  You will recall that we are cooking from Marcella Hazan's "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking" book, and we had the option to choose any "flavour" we liked.  It being spring here, the choice was really a no-brainer - it just had to be asparagus.

This was an absolute breeze to make - it may have been my first frittata, but it definitely won't be my last.  I had beautiful, organic asparagus and gorgeous, bright-orange-yolked, free-range eggs - with such wonderful ingredients this was bound to be good, and it did not disappoint.  This made a beautiful light lunch, and was still delicious served cold (well, room-temperature really) the next day.

Asparagus Frittata

Adapted from Marcella Hazan's

"Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking"

Serves 4

Vegetarian

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

450g (1lb) fresh asparagus

5 eggs (preferably free-range)

flaky sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

2/3 cup parmesan cheese, freshly grated

2 tablespoons butter

Snap the woody ends off the asparagus spears, and drop them into a pot of boiling salted water.  Cook until the spears are fork tender, but are still firm to the bite.  Remove from pan, cool, and then cut into short pieces about 1.5cm (1/2-inch) long.

Beat the eggs together in a bowl.  Add the asparagus, a couple of generous pinches of flaky sea salt, freshly ground pepper, and the grated parmesan cheese.

Melt the butter in a non-stick pan over medium heat.  As soon as the butter begins to foam, give the egg and asparagus mixture a good stir, and pour it all into the pan.

Turn the heat down to very low, and as soon as the eggs have thickened and set, with just the surface still being a bit runny, remove the pan from the heat and finish off under the grill (broiler) in your oven.  This will barely take a minute - remove as soon as the top is set and before it starts to brown.

Slide the frittata out of the pan onto a board or serving platter, and cut into wedges.

If you don't eat this all at once, it is wonderful the next day used in a sandwich on fresh ciabatta bread.

Do visit my Cooking Italy page to learn more about the group (maybe you'd even like to join in - you don't have to have a blog to join the group and cook along with everyone else), find links to other members of the group, and links to all the Cooking Italy recipes I've cooked so far.

 

Available from Amazon, Book Depository UK, Fishpond NZ