There is a story behind the short title of this entry. The night I was cooking this frittata, my younger daughter Alex was in the kitchen chatting via YM using the pullout table in the customized kitchen cabinet (if you want a more visual approach, see the photos in the kitchen cabinet entry in my other blog). She was chatting and watching the cooking at the same time. When she saw the frittata slowly getting assembled, she asked what it was called. I said, “Something.”
I normally try to make blog titles (and recipe names) as descriptive as possible without inventing terms that no one’s ever heard of. That’s the thing about recipes, food blogging, and search engines. A lot of people search by ingredients so unless a dish already has a traditional name, I pick the most important ingredients and use them for the title. That said, this is a side dish that accompanied the fried dangit not dried salted dangit but fresh that we had for dinner last Saturday. The base is made with thinly sliced potatoes which were topped with broccoli florets, slivers of belly bacon, onions, and two kinds of cheeses a low-fat cheese spread and grated quickmelt cheese.
Heat the butter in a non-stick frying pan. Over medium heat, fry the potatoes until lightly browned. Do this in batches, flipping them over for even browning. In the remaining butter, fry the bacon (how crisp depends on your preference). Then, add the chopped onion and the broccoli florets. Season with salt and pepper. Cook for a few minutes or just until the broccoli is cooked through but still crisp. Transfer the bacon, onion, and broccoli to a bowl.
Turn the heat to low. Arrange the fried potatoes in a single layer on the bottom of the frying pan. Season with salt and pepper. Scatter the bacon and broccoli mixture evenly on top of the potatoes. Beat the eggs in a bowl and pour over the potatoes, bacon, and broccoli. Drop the teaspoonfuls of cheese spread into the frittata, spacing them as evenly as you can. Sprinkle with the grated cheese. Cover and cook until the eggs are set and the cheeses are melted.
Note: If your frying pan can go straight into the oven, you can cook the frittata on the stovetop until the eggs are partially set then transfer it, in the pan, to a preheated oven preferably with a grill setting. That way, the top and bottom will brown nicely while the inside stays soft. Pair your frittata with fried or grilled fish, pork, chicken, or lamb and you’ve got yourself a wonderful meal.