Have You Made A Frittata For Supper Lately?

When I was a little girl living with my parents in The Garden of Allah in Hollywood, now and then we received postcards from my mother’s old friend, MFK Fisher, who was living amongst boulders and rattlesnakes in Hemet, a hundred miles to the east. The card—postage was a penny—was always a recipe in MF’s round blue-ink script, and the titles were fascinating. The two I particularly remember are “Cookies of Otamela” (so very MF, a made-up Spanish word for oatmeal) and "Frittata." To my nine year-old’s ear, “Frittata” was mellifluous—tintinnabulation—and I longed to taste it. I can’t remember my mother making a frittata, but when I was married and Gene and I went to visit MF, she made them for us often.
Dissolve through many years…I don’t think I made frittatas for my children, it’s not a children’s dish…children like to know what they’re eating. I remember Dinah when I was testing recipes: “What is this, Mommy?” “It’s veal, dear.” “I know, but what was it?”
Hey. What is a frittata, anyway?
It is a serene—not hustled about—Italian variation of a French omelette…you can count on the Italians to do something beautiful that’s easygoing.
More precisely, a frittata is cooled cooked vegetables/ cheese/meat mixed with beaten eggs, poured into a hot buttered skillet, cooked gently until the eggs are set on the bottom, then—here’s the drama and the fun—coaxed out of the pan, flipped over, then slipped back into the skillet to finish cooking.
Hunh? Easy you say? Yes.
The flipping over part can be sidestepped by finishing under the broiler.
Also, you can miss when you flip and the world doesn’t come to an end. Not long ago, I was making a frittata for six in an enormous skillet on a friend’s cooktop…flipped it over onto a big platter—so far so good—only the platter slipped and half the damn frittata went splatting all over the cooktop. My friend, a meticulous housekeeper, was horrified but I calmly picked up cooked chunks and pieces, plunked them onto the serving platter, finished cooking what was left, and it all tasted fine—I mean, I was cooking for FRIENDS, for pity’s sake. Alas, my hostess was not happy with her eggy stove but I’m afraid even though I was mortified for the mess, I thought it was pretty funny…
Above all, the great thing about this dish is that you don’t need to worry about rules or proportions. Use what you like and what you have on hand.
Now here I am on my own and I probably make a frittata a week. The reason? It’s easy, delicious, practical, cheap. Nourishing. Lean.
Tonight, watching the Dodgers—I hope—cream the Phillies, I made a frittata for my supper…
What I did was slice half a box of mushrooms and sauté them in a tad of butter till tender while nuking a chunk of frozen chopped spinach till cooked…poured myself a glass of my Spanish red wine while, in another skillet, I cut up a small onion and sauteed it in a thread of olive oil till sweet and golden…added minced garlic (have you discovered the jar that has minced garlic at the ready, what a treat!) at the end. Turned mushrooms, spinach, onion into a shallow dish, cut in a couple of ounces of mozzarella in small pieces to melt, mixed it all up, and let cool.
Watched the game, sipped my wine.
I beat up two eggs and stirred them into the cooled veggies. Salted and peppered (could have added dill weed or fresh parsley but didn’t bother). Heated a tablespoon of butter in the non-stick onion-cooking skillet over medium-high heat, poured in the mix, shook the skillet to settle the vegetables. Cooked until the sides looked set and the surface looked close to set—hard to give you time, because every mixture, every skillet, every burner is different, but it’s generally 4 to 8 minutes. Then I used a non-stick spatula to free up the bottom, set a big plate on top, and flipped it over. Set the skillet back on the heat, swooshed it over with another spoonful of unsalted butter, slid in the frittata—uncooked side down. Cooked it another few minutes till, when I shook the pan, the whole thing moved. Slid it onto a plate and sat and finished watching the game.
We just lost to the Phillies. Bummer. They lead the series 3 to 1. I called my formerly cherished Philadelphia-born friend Nan Wollman and told her that it’s over between us.
But it was a good and simple dinner. There was more than enough for me…I wish MF were around to share it.