Vegetable Frittata

Eggs make an excellent breakfast and if made into an omelette it makes a sumptuous meal in itself. Add a few vegetables to the omelette and you can give the bread a miss making it a healthy meal. For a long time, I wanted to make a frittata, which is an Italian omelette with vegetables or meat or cheese added to it. The vegetables or meats are lightly sautéed to start the cooking process and is then baked in the oven till the eggs set. Most vegetables can be added to a frittata, even spinach like in a lasagna. In fact, a frittata is made in Italy to use up whatever vegetables and meats left in the frig along with leftovers sometimes even pasta.

In India, we have a similar dish from the Parsi / Zoroastrian community where eggs are cooked over a bed of either vegetable, meat or seafood. In this dish, the eggs are dropped on a base of lightly sautéed vegetable or meat or seafood of choice and is slow cooked on the stove top or baked in an oven. And it is called "whatever ingredient on eggs", so we have  papeta (potato) per eeda or tamatar (tomato) per eeda or ingredients like salli (fried potato sticks), kootu (shrimps), kheema (mince meat) and some unique ones like lady finger, fenugreek leaves, drumstick flowers, bananas, etc. on eggs.

To make today's vegetable frittata, I used potato, onions and green peppers. I would have loved to add red bell pepper for the color but it wasn't available in the local store and I made do with the veges in stock.

Ingredients
Eggs - 3
Milk - 1 tbsp

Potatoes - 2
Onion - 1 medium
Capsicum  Green bell pepper - 3tbsp chopped
Cheese - 2 tbsp grated
Oregano / Parsley / Coriander leaves
Salt as per taste
Black pepper pwd as per taste
Oil

Slice the onions and potatoes into 1/4 inch thickness. Heat a flat pan and brush with some oil, layer potato slices and cook both sides till just  light gold and keep aside. Sauté the onion slices till translucent and keep aside. Lightly sauté the capsicum / bell pepper also.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Grease a baking pan and then layer the pan with potatoes, onions and bell pepper.

Break the eggs into a bowl, add the milk, a little salt and pepper and beat with a hand mixer. Add half the grated cheese, the herb of choice and beat again. Pour the egg mix into the pan and top with the rest of the grated cheese. Bake in oven for about 15 to 20 minutes till the top sets and it leaves the sides of the pan after turning brown. I baked mine for 17 minutes and after switching the oven off, I let it rest in the oven for a couple of minutes before taking the pan out. Run a knife round the edge before cutting out a wedge.

My frittata did break a little maybe because I used a deep casserole and then tried to invert onto a plate. Instead try cutting into wedges and slip the spatula under the frittata and scoop it out.

Maybe cutting into wedges when the oven is switched off and letting it be in the oven to firm the wedges may help.