Friday Frittata

When I was a little girl, Mum used to joke that if you are what you eat, I must have been made of potatoes. Apparently, if there was a choice between any kind of food or even delicious treats and (mashed, steamed, fried, boiled) potato, I'd be all over the potatoes like a rash as if it were candy. Weird. I wonder if I had some rare elemental nutrient deficiency? Is it selenium that somes from spuds? Let me know!

Anyhoo, I'm a bit more balanced in my diet now, but I must admit that potato is still my go-to carbs over other choices, probably because I've devoted such a lifetime to discovering fun and interesting ways to cook it. This includes the time that my parents got the "evil" (according to my Year 2 teacher) microwave device, and I would cook a potato in the microwave plain, then pour Maggi seasoning sauce (essentially soya sauce with MSG added) on and feel like an evil genius gourmand. The babysitter who taught me how to make home-made crisps by thinly slicing potatoes and frying them as an after school snack is still my favourite, and we are still in contact 25 years on! No surprise then that my aforementioned recipe clipping folder contains an entire section devoted to potatoes:



...and my favourite recipe is potato frittata, which has taken many many forms in my topsy-turvy-many-housey lifetime. I can't believe I haven't blogged it yet for you!

Potato frittata (or "potato based quiche") is a versatile dish. It is a great dish to cut up into little finger food/tapas sized pieces for people to nibble as an appetiser at parties and goes down well as it is substantial but snacky enough to bring to "bring a plate" functions or to work. It's also a lovely comfort food that you can serve up, country café-style on a plate with a simple salad. You can bake it, then keep it in the fridge as leftovers to eat cold or reheated for breakfast, lunch, dinner or supper; which is perfect for the times when I've been living the solitary shiftworker lifestyle and can only work up enough energy to cook once for a big round of days or nights on. I'm actually post-nights, and eating a big leftover slab of it right now as we speak.



(No seriously, when can I quit my day/night job and run a little country café?)

I've also found that in lieu of having the entire thing as a dense layer of potatoey goodness, you can also substitute many combinations of ingredients for the middle and top layer without too much fuss. Shredded turkey, chopped BBQ chicken, grated zucchini, broccolini pieces, mushrooms, sweet potato and leftover Christmas ham are amongst some of my tried and tested concepts. You can completely replace the potato, if you have a weird childhood trauma aversion to them (Irish ex-boyfriend, are you listening?), but I would suggest you use them for the very base layer just to add some structural integrity. You can also make two different combos in the same dish:



So here is the basic recipe, but if you can imagine it is three layers, one potato, one onion +/- bacon/ham; one potato, feel free to substitute in any cooked meat or vegies for the top two layers.

POTATO FRITTATA

For a lasagne dish 18x27cm
--> Line the dish with baking paper and oil it (I use olive oil spray but butter or oil smear works just as well)
--> Preheat the oven to 180degrees.

Base and top layers
1kg (approx. 10 medium sized) potatoes, thinly sliced (Kipfler or waxy potatoes are best, not mashing potatoes)
--> Boil, steam or microwave these until al dente. These will be for both the base and top layers. As I do them in the microwave, I put half first into the microwave. While that is cooking I then sort out the middle layer (see below). Then while the second 500g (of potatoes or other vegies) is cooking I can start layering the first layer of cooked potatoes into the dish.

If I have limited time on one day or know I plan to make frittata a day later, the other option is to cook all the potatoes, then allow them to cool and keep them in the fridge until you are ready for assembly.

Middle layer
1 large or two small (red or white) onions, finely chopped
2 rashers of bacon or slices of ham, finely chopped (optional)
1 small red chili, seeded and finely chopped OR a tablespoon of sweet chili sauce
--> Fry these together in a pan with a spray or splash of olive oil until the onion is translucent and soft.

--> Layer the bottom layer neatly with your first 500g of cooked potato slices. Season with a sprinkle of:

Seasoning mix
Parsley (dried or chopped fresh), chives or spring onions finely snipped
Ground black pepper
Parmesan cheese (instant stuff in a jar or grated fresh are both fine)

--> Then layer on the middle layer mix; and again sprinkle on the seasonings.

--> Then place the top layer ingredients (your 2nd 500g of potato slices, or whatever cooked meat/vegie mix you want to incorporate. If you have heaps of leftover vegies to use up or a cooked chook in the back of the fridge, you can skip the middle layer to allow more room for this stuff and to save time. Again sprinkly over a fine layer of the seasonings.

Egg mix
8 eggs, beaten
1 cup buttermilk or milk, mixed in with the eggs
--> Pour this mixture over your layered goodies. Allow to settle/gently encourage the ingredients down below the egg line with a fork.

--> Bake for 45 minutes, or until the egg mix is set (which you can check by inserting a skewer in the middle which should come out cleanly if it is cooked through). I find most ovens are not 100% even, so I often pull it out at about 20 or 30 minutes to give it a gentle jiggle to check the firmness, then I rotate it around in the oven for more even baking.

--> Allow to cool out of the oven once done to let the excess steam escape and the egg mix to firm up. I then use the baking paper and a couple of spatulas to lift the whole thing out of the pan onto a chopping board to allow for easier slicing. If you want to make small tapas sized pieces, use a very sharp knife and allow it to cool further before slicing to really firm up the mix (often I refrigerate it overnight then slice it the next day for this effect).




MODIFICATIONS

For a standard sized round quiche dish, 3-4 potatoes are enough for each layer (see purple recipe above) and then alter the middle and top layers accordingly; use 6 eggs to 1/2 a cup of milk for your egg mix.

For a larger roasting pan, use 11 or 12 eggs to one cup of milk, and larger potatoes or more meat/vegie mix.

It's an art, not a science! Enjoy!!!

...because we all love a good Kanga Banga...

I just got home from Peru, and had been chatting away with a bunch of North and South Americans about the Australian love of Skippy. To eat, that is. (I ate lots of delicious alpaca dishes, and I even tried guinea pig!)

So, I had a metric sshttonne of things to do after almost forty hours in transit - unpacking, work catchups, clean the house, get the bung oven door fixed... but no, it all had to wait because I NEEDED to cook. Every now and then I just crave fresh food and the joy of wielding a knife into it. I popped down to the local IGA and bought some you beaut fresh fennels (did I mention I forgot my oven was limply hanging open and not safe for use?) in amongst a basketful of luscious green stuff. I knew I had a freezer full of meat and on my arrival home I was pleased to see these bad boys in the top drawer:

A quick defrost in the micro-onde and a cue for Sale of the Century thinking music. Yes, I often build my meals around the protein.





I introduced my Dadsy to fennel with my oven roasted warm salad, and as is his way, he's made it his own by making it the star of many a stirfry, often with beef. I ran with that idea at a recent impromptu extended rellies Shiraz Shindig, serving pan seared kangaroo steaks sliced on the oblique and juicy atop my ovenated fennel.

So, what was it for lunch? Bush tomato Skippy & Fennel Stirfry of course!

It went something like this:
(Jetlag permitting)

Slice the fennel into 1cm-ish width short strips, chuck into hot wok with a generous drizzle of olive oil; pull out some frozen lemon slices from your stash (fresh or bottled juice would be fine too) and chuck them in too. Pour over some water, loads of cracked pepper and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar to help with the caramelisation.






Meanwhile, grab your defrosted kangaroo snags (mine already had herbs and bush tomato flavouring) and snip the skins off with some scissors or a knife.

Chuck the meat into a big bowl and smoosh into chunks with a spoon.





Add equal splashes of light soy sauce and dry sherry, heaps of pepper and a punch of sugar or tiny bit of balsamic. By now the fennel is pretty much cooked through (go for soft, not al dente) and the liquid in the pan has reduced. Add the lovely roo meat lumps, stirfry the bejeezus out of the mix...

...and hey presto, lunch is served!


(Albeit, not particularly photogenic!)

I'm a very lucky girl, my past self really looks after me, so I was able to have a box of rice reheated out of the freezer in a jiffy. However, I reckon this recipe could be served with pasta, potatoes or cous cous as the carb base. Also, I reckon the addition of some olives and a dollop of tomato (tins, paste or sauce) could easily convert this to more Mediterranean feel.

Mmm, next time I'll use roo steak (more on that later). But only because good alpaca can be hard to find here.

Yay, leftovers for dinner too. Good to be home in the kitchen.

Kangaroo Ragoo

{First official bignomslittlenoms blogpost}

I learnt something new with this one, namely that Ragu is Italian for Ragout (French, from ragoûter). Given that I was using Kanga Bangas (yes, that is what they are called), I've decided that it's Roo Ragoo.

Loosely based on my first port of call for most ideas, a quick search on taste.com.au, and the fact that I am on 13 hour shifts and only had some Kanga Bangas in the fridge to start with, I decided to construct my late night dinner (after Iron Chef of course).

The process went something like this:

Pull kanga bangas out of fridge (500g packet) to rest.

Boil water in kettle, pour into saucepan, salt liberally, chuck saucepan on stove on high heat.

Wash and finely chop broccoli - I quartered the florets and diced the stalk to 1cm cubes. Pop in microwave, set for "fresh vegetables 0.3kg".

(Sing along to Kasey Chambers and hubby's country-banjo infused duet version of Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out of My Head).

Put handful of dried pasta into saucepan - I used wide curly fettucine, because there was an open packet of it in a jar in the pantry. Note time, sort of, and mentally remind self what the time will be in 14 minutes - because that is what the packet told me was the "cooks in..." time.

Get another larger pan, pour olive oil in.

(Be grateful nowhere near as large and emotionally distressed as US Biggest Loser contestants).

Roughly chop garlic and chuck onto olive oil. Wonder why there are no onions anywhere in the house. Separate kanga banga sausage meat from skins (slice lengthways, unwrap) and smoosh with hands into oil in big bits. Best to wet hands first so meat doesn't stick. Meh. Wash hands.

(Tsk tsk at the Black Team for using their luxury prize to booze with its thousands of calories, and get on the gaspers!!!)

Liberally apply dried thyme, oregano, chili flakes, black pepper and then also freshly grind on fresh black pepper. Go nuts with the wooden spoon to break up all the bits of meat into little chunks. Give up on wooden spoon and switch to mega-spatula, which does the trick nicely. Splash some light soy sauce and balsamic vinegar over the mix.

Suddenly remember to attend to pasta which is boiling over, stir and unlid.
Open microwave because it is shouting at me regards the broccoli.

Back to the mix. Meat is browned, add a sort of cupful of water from the still-hot kettle, add a beef stock cube. Mix for a bit, allow to simmer while wrestling with pasta sauce jar lid (chunky tomato and herb a la that was the brand on discount du jour). Plop whole jar of pasta sauce in, with extra hot water into jar (quarter jarful-ish) to shake out all the claggy bits stuck to the insides of the jar and add that to the mix. Chuck in the broccoli bits, stir well, put lid on.

It's probably been 14 minutes and the pasta seems done, so turn gas burner off, pour into strainer. Curse self for forgetting to keep some of the starchy water to add to mix a la Jamie Oliver - next time. Keep warm over saucepan with lid on. Live in fear of bacillus cereus spores popping open at room temperature in grain foods.

Mix is boiling and looks a bit pale. Decide to add tinned tomatoes, same trick with hot water to get all the gooey goodness out of can. Pop out to balcony, freeze tits off, pluck a handful of flat leaf parsley, consider marjoram but hands are numb so back inside and shut the door! Wash and chop parsley, sprinkle some on pasta, some on mix. Be glad stirring boiling mix is warming my hands up. Grab jar of olives, rinse about half the jarful. Halve some, bivalve some and leave the rest intact and add to mix. Add a heap of grated parmesan (like, two big handfuls) and watch mix start to take form.

Give up on perfect consistency of "Ragoo" and decide to eat now as "Pasta Sauce" consistency. Refresh pasta with a pour of boiling water through the strainer. Serve pasta with generous spoonfuls of Roogoo atop, toss to serve and sit on couch to watch next segment of Biggest Loser. Decide to put rest of pasta in fridge, and get more black pepper for my bowl whilst I am up. Leave mix on stove on simmer to further consolidate into "Ragoo". Pop that into separate box in fridge after having finished my delicious dinner. Nom.

(Be glad I have had a balanced healthy meal that is hearty and delicious without whining or being SHOUTIER THAN A MICROWAVE AT A CELEBRITY PERSONAL TRAINER WHO IS REALLY JUST THERE TO HELP or concerned about my Blue or Black top or being weighed on national television).

Time for bed.

- There were requests on fbook for a picture, but despite being delicious it is not really a pretty sort of meal! I am reheating some today for lunch at work, if I can make it presentable I will take a photo for you...

Leftover duck and glass noodle salad

{A retrospective post from October 2010}

qwack qwack

I had some leftover "Siew nyap" or Chinese roast duck from the local BBQ house.

Decided to make a random glass noodle salad to noms it with - green beans, cucumber, lime juice, soy, chilli (too much!), garlic, ginger and a sprinkle of sugar. Basically, just shredded the duck meat, skin on whilst setting the glass noodles in a large dish of cold water to soak, cut the vegies on a sharp angle, then mixed the whole lot together. A gentle nuke in the microwave just to warm it through and hey presto! classy leftovers to snack on, or refridgerate to bring to work where it can be gently nuked and you can feel smug about a bit of comfort on your break...