Recipe Corner: Spinach & Feta Frittata

Depending which definition you choose, you could call this recipe a frittata, a tortilla or a Spanish omelette. After my mathematical debacle in the last entry I'm unwilling to commit to an answer. Hehehe.

In this household it has been known variously as:

• There's A Vegetarian At My Table WTF Should I Do
• I'm Too Lazy To Cook But Realistically This Is Quicker Than Getting A Takeaway
• Refrigerator Graveyard In A Pan

Reason for today's culinary diversion: I found this Leftover Recipe Competition on Weight Loss Resources. I raided the fridge for the most shriveled ingredients and got all geeked up to enter. But then realised that might be a bit dodgy, since they kindly pimped the heck out of my book. So I thought I'd share it here instead.

Like everything I cook this is stupidly easy and awfully vague. It's one many reasons my food blog venture failed a few years back - I felt silly adding half-arsed primary school recipes to the blogosphere while other folks did precision flambéed goat trotters and Peruvian gooseberry parfaits.

Step 1 - Take some Spuds of Yesteryear
... that is, some leftover cooked potatoes, or the skanky raw potatoes lurking in your cupboard with seventeen eyes each. I had about 500 grams/1lb of new potatoes, so I removed the eyes, sliced em up then microwaved until juuuust tender.

If you're a member of the Potatoes Are Evil OOGA BOOGA camp, chunks of other firm veggies work well, like sweet potato or butternut squash.

Step 2 - Get yer non-starchy veggies ready
First, something oniony - leeks, spring onions or even... ONIONS. In this case half an onion leftover from pita pizzas the night before.

Second, something colourful and worthy. Asparagus or artichoke hearts are dead tasty, but here we have two handfuls of near-death English spinach. Most of it had turned to pulp in the bottom of the Tupperware container but these leaves were salvagable.

Step 3 - Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a nice round pan with a handle (ETA: I have the hotplate on the highest heat, but our stove is utterly rubbish. If you've got a decent one I'd probably go with a medium heat so you don't burn the eggs later on).

Sauté your onion, then add the tatties. Gently stir now and then so they get a nice golden colour but don't break up. This takes at least ten minutes on my shithouse stovetop but I hope you get a swifter response!

Step 4 - Meanwhile crack some eggs into a bowl. I used half a dozen - the amount of eggs of course depends on how many veggies you've got, how many mouths you're feeding, and/or how many eggs are left in the carton. Season with some dried chili flakes and black pepper then whisk to combine. You don't need any salt.

Step 5 - Once the spuds are done, add the spinach then carefully stir until it wilts. Again, you don't want to bust your spuds.

Step 6 - Make sure the veggie mixture is spaced out evenly over the pan, then pour over the egg mixture. Kinda smooth and poke at the whole thing with wooden spoon to make sure the egg gets between the gaps and you get a relatively even surface.

Let it cook for awhile you get preheat your grill. Is that a broiler to Americans? It's that thing with the heat that you slide things beneath in order to get them nice and toasty.

Step 7 - Once it's started to cook around the edges, I plop on about 150 grams/5oz feta cheese or similar strong and crumbly cheese. I used Wensleydale once and it was nae bad. You could be virtuous and skip the cheese altogether but... BORRRRRRING!

Step 8 - I don't know exactly how long you cook this on the stove before you whack it under the grill. Usually its about five minutes, til the edges are looking cooked and it doesn't move much when you shoogle the pan, but there's still eggy liquid around.

Anyway, whop it under the grill for about five minutes until the eggy bits look puffy and the feta looks lovely and golden.

Step 9 - Let it rest for at least ten minutes, otherwise it's too hot for you to truly appreciate the full flavour of the tasty, tasty feta.

Actually don't let it rest too long or you'll start picking off chunks of tasty, tasty feta and then you'll have to shame-facedly serve up it up to your friends with big feta dents in it.

Nice with a wee salad - here we have mixed leaves, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, red pepper and strawberries.

Also very tasty eaten cold the next day, but a little dull if you've picked off all the cheese!

For the nerds: Serves 4. 338 calories per serve. Click for details!

Comments

[1 · Posted by Lia Halsall · July 22, 2008 at 01:50 PM]

That looks delicous, thanks for sharing it. :o)

[2 · Posted by Kek · July 22, 2008 at 02:02 PM]

Yer a girl after me own heart. I love a good meal made from the dodgy crap that's left in the fridge just before shopping day.

Nice one, DG!

[3 · Posted by Runner Girl · July 22, 2008 at 02:53 PM]

Hi DG, I just subscribed to your feed. I love the blog! I hope you check mine out- maybe we can become a weight loss team- diet and exercise haha

[4 · Posted by Lainey · July 22, 2008 at 03:02 PM]

Mmmmmnnn - spinach. AND picture of spinach. I likes it. I likes it a lot.

[5 · Posted by Fit Bottomed Girls · July 22, 2008 at 03:32 PM]

That looks fantastic. It could almost be mistaken for one heck of a tasty pizza!

[6 · Posted by SeaBreeze · July 22, 2008 at 04:24 PM]

I am assuming this is over medium heat on the stove. Is that approximately right? I ask because I have a tendancy to burn the bottom of my eggs.

[7 · Posted by dg · July 22, 2008 at 04:29 PM]

Hi SeaBreeze, since I have an electric stove that is old and crappy so I have to do it on the absolute max. If you have a decent electric or a gas hob i'd probably go for medium!

[8 · Posted by Laura N · July 22, 2008 at 05:58 PM]

Oh how I wish I could just throw things together in a meal and make it taste great. Whatever that gene is that enables creative cookery, I didn't get it. Thankfully there are good folks like you and my go-to recipe goddess, Roni, who put out freebie recipes on the internet. Or I'd never eat anything other than frozen food and dry chicken breasts.

Love your alternate titles for the recipe. You are so darn funny.

[9 · Posted by jaclyn · July 22, 2008 at 08:28 PM]

Looks fab - i'm a fridge graveyard girlie too!!

and i love the fact that you wrote about "shoogling" the pan!!! fabby!!

x

[10 · Posted by K · July 22, 2008 at 08:29 PM]

Yes! Something to do with spinach!

I decided to grow some this year (to counteract the mushiness in the crisper that you mention) and it's really easy. Too easy. My tiny veg patch has been taken over by a sprawling spinach jungle and it grows faster than we can eat it. It's been spinach salad every other day for weeks.

And I still can't do more than one pushup. Cartoons LIE.

[11 · Posted by Sagan · July 22, 2008 at 08:52 PM]

YUM. When I lived in Spain their tortilla was my favourite meal. This looks like a really interesting spin on that dish!

[12 · Posted by Jilly · July 22, 2008 at 09:08 PM]

Someone else who puts their omlettes under the grill! My friends take the mickey out of me for that.

Cracking receipe, I shall be trying it out at the weekend!

Jilly xx

[13 · Posted by Marshmallow · July 22, 2008 at 09:45 PM]

NOM

*gnaws at computer screen*

[14 · Posted by Marshmallow · July 22, 2008 at 09:48 PM]

Also, "shoogle" is so my new favourite word.

*goes to put it on a t-shirt*

[15 · Posted by Barb · July 22, 2008 at 10:02 PM]

Shauna, this sounds fabulous! For my two cents, I think you should post more of your recipes written just like this one was. I laughed my ass off!

Barb
ON, Canada

[16 · Posted by Katschi · July 22, 2008 at 10:30 PM]

Damn, that looks tasty! Definitely a must make recipe.
Pass me a slice, will ya?
Your book arrived at my house today & I'll be tucking into it tonight.

[17 · Posted by Ann · July 23, 2008 at 12:06 AM]

I make a similar frittata but mint rather than chilli flakes and with broad beans and/or asparagus (depending on what's in season, grated courgette is also good with the mint). It's even good without the spuds. Quick food is good!

[18 · Posted by Gabrielle H · July 23, 2008 at 02:11 AM]

Love that leftover food! I think I'll try it when next the ingredients ammas in my fridge

[19 · Posted by Americanlass · July 23, 2008 at 04:59 AM]

Yummo! I love the spinach as well...I shall now go 'shoogle' my pan! :)

[20 · Posted by Alison · July 23, 2008 at 09:12 AM]

Just to say morning and congratulations on your appropriate use of the word "shoogle"...now must shoogle ma tumshie aff tae work...have a nice day xx

[21 · Posted by dg · July 23, 2008 at 09:16 AM]

:) Shoogle is one of my favourite Scottish words... very onomatopoeic!

K - homegrown spinach! YUM! wonder if you could freeze it if you have too much?

Jilly - from what I read while trying to define what the hell the dish is, a frittata is finished off under the grill, so tell your pals your omelette is a frittata and to stop giving you grief :)

Thanks very much for your comments, comrades!

[22 · Posted by Cat · July 23, 2008 at 01:05 PM]

I love me some hot frittata! That's my thursday meal simply cause it's right before shopping, it's great!! Try it with lentils too, I'm not a fan of potatoes in the frittata so tried it with lentils, extra filling yet not so imposing on the other flavours, lovely texture compliment as well :) Ooooo I do hope you start food blogging again!

[23 · Posted by South American Slimmer · July 23, 2008 at 09:30 PM]

Inspired by you, I had a go at leftover egg dish (untitled). I chucked some frozen spinach and peas and leftover butternut squash puree (it´s winter down here, folks!) into a frying pan and once the spinach had heated up just added a couple of eggs, salt and ground hot pepper, stirred and shoogled (but I don´t have a grill, so I missed out that part). It was more of scrambled eggs than anything, but tasty. I didn´t add cheese (I wish we had feta here), but since the recipe is so low-cal I poured over a tablespoon of really posh extra virgin olive oil to finish it off. Your post also reminded me of how when I lived in the States I used to miss out any recipes that called for things to be put under a broiler. I thought it was a really complicated piece of strange kitchen equipment and assumed I didn´t have one.

[24 · Posted by Leanne · July 23, 2008 at 10:25 PM]

After reading your blog, I made that for dinner last night... I used potatoes, onions, garden onions, zucchini, swiss chard, eggs, some leftover salmon and feta. It was wonderful... but could have used waaaaaaaay more feta. :-) Thanks for the ideas!

[25 · Posted by Ash · July 23, 2008 at 11:16 PM]

MMMMM..... droool! proteiney goodness....

I'm hungry!

[26 · Posted by Sandra · July 24, 2008 at 12:45 PM]

Thanks for this. I have feta and spainach at home so dinner is sorted!

[27 · Posted by Abs · July 25, 2008 at 11:14 AM]

Nom nom nom. I made a bastardised version of this the other night with peas instead of spinach, and my fella and I took it to the park to have (cold, with a strong chive dressing à la Nigel Slater) as part of a rozmantic picnic. Oh yeah, and I put a big spoonful of green olive tapendade in it. It was lush. So is he. Nom nom nommmmm.

[28 · Posted by Abs · July 25, 2008 at 01:30 PM]

Speaking of pea omelettes, I feel I must refer you to a picture I took last year:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/absnasm/384085860/

[29 · Posted by Shortcake · July 26, 2008 at 12:30 AM]

That looks so yummy. I just wanted to say I love and appreciate your blog so much! It is so inspirational!

[30 · Posted by Shazam · July 26, 2008 at 08:39 AM]

oooh that looks delicious!!! i don't really like eggs, but i did have a frittata once before at a friend's place that had lots of taters in it, and i quite liked it... i think i'll be making your version for 'brunch' tomorrow! thanks!!!

[31 · Posted by Heather · July 30, 2008 at 04:22 AM]

Yeah... I have never used my broiler. I am honestly afraid of it. I am sure the whole thing is just going to catch fire. I may try it, now. If your old electric will do the trick, why not my old gas monster? Happy "grilling." So, do you call grilling (outdoors), barbeque-ing? hmm...

[32 · Posted by Lilbet · August 07, 2008 at 10:19 PM]

Fantabuloso!

I've got a refrigerator full of muck, I mean great leftover bits to use up.

Love this recipe. Love your writing style.

I'm a Scottish (Swedish, Czech, and German) lass born and living in America wanting to visit Australia. (So, we're a bit alike?) I'm so glad I found you!

I'm currently loving and hating Weight Watchers, but watching the weight fall off. Joy!

I'll add you to my favorite blogs listing on my blog.

Peace,
Elizabeth