Late Night Baked Frittata

 

During one of those late-night mother and son conversations yesterday about how nice the frittata was at the Kendal People's Cafe / PopUp Repair Workshop at the Castle Street Centre in Kendal, the son grinned and said, "frittatas are easy" and promptly vanished into the kitchen to make one.

He normally makes them in a cast iron frying pan on the stove, but this time he wanted to try a baked in the oven version to see how it worked.

Mother was drafted in to help: chopping onion and long red pepper into small pieces ready for a quick softening fry in the pan, and to crack eggs into the bowl without dropping the shell in as well (she failed!)

Son tackled the potatoes - nice fresh redskins that were just washed and sliced thinly, no need to peel them.

The end result was very tasty and proved that, yes, you can make frittata in the oven! Here's how...

Ingredients

800g of potatoes, washed and thinly sliced
9 eggs
1 large onion, finely chopped
½ long red pepper, finely chopped
approx 10cm of Aldi spicy chorizo or equivalent
Olive oil to fry the onion, pepper and chorizo in to start with
A couple of dashes of Cholula Chipotle sauce
Salt and pepper (optional)

Method

Firstly, put the olive oil into a frying pan and shallow fry the onion, pepper and chorizo for around 3 minutes or so, adding the cholula sauce and making sure everything is hot through.

Crack the eggs into a jug or bowl and lightly mix with a fork to break up the yolks.

In a large mixing bowl combine the sliced potatoes and the contents of the frying pan, pour mixture into a large baking dish (ours is approx 28cm x 17cm). Level it down, then pour the eggs over the mixture. Sprinkle a pinch of salt on the top (only a little!).

Bake in oven on Gas Mark 4 for 100 minutes (1hr 20mins).  Remove from oven and lightly sprinkle a small amount of black pepper over the surface, cut into portions and serve hot.

Serves 4 as a main course or 8 as a side dish.

Asparagus, sweet red pepper and spicy chorizo soup

Having picked up some reduced-price asparagus in the supermarket and having not had this vegetable before (other than as instant packet soup) we needed a new way to use it. Asparagus soup is nice, so what if we could enhance it? A bit of experimentation, and this was the result!

Asparagus, sweet red pepper and spicy chorizo soup

Ingredients:

130g-150g asparagus spears cut into small pieces (young thin shoots are best but if yours are thicker and older see notes below) *
enough boiling water to cover asparagus in a pan

1 medium sized capsicum/sweet red pepper, finely chopped (orange or yellow will do if you can't find a red one)
1 medium onion, finely chopped
Oil to cover base of small pan/skillet

60g-70g spicy chorizo chopped into small pieces (we use the Aldi one but any make will do)
1 vegetable stock cube
1 teaspoon of Italian Seasoning **
¼ teaspoon of ground Star Anise
pinch of salt
¼ pint of milk (dairy, soya or oat milk all work equally well)
¼ pint of boiling water
1 tablespoon of plain flour
50g butter or margarine

Method:

Put the chopped asparagus, the pinch of salt and the stock cube into a big pan and cover with the boiling water and cook for approx 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, fry the capsicum and onion in the small pan or skillet for 3-4 minutes.

Add the chorizo to the asparagus pan along with the onion and capsicum and add the Italian Seasoning and Star Anise. Leave it to simmer gently.

In the small pan or skillet put the butter/margarine and melt over a medium heat. Add the flour and mix to form a roux. Cook for 1-2 minutes to make sure the flour is cooked properly. Add the ¼ pint of boiling water to the roux and stir well to avoid lumps. Continue to heat through stirring all the time, the mixture will thicken to make a thick sauce.

Add the roux mixture to the asparagus pan stirring continuously, add the ¼ pint of milk. The soup liquid should be a thick runny consistency like honey.

Turn off the heat, cover the pan and leave the soup to stand for approx 2 hours.  Or make the day before and leave to stand in the fridge overnight if you prefer.

Reheat after standing, add more hot water to thin the soup if needed. Do a taste test and add a wee bit more salt if needed.

Serve with fresh bread. The loaf in the photo is one of the Co-operative's loaves which we love!

Notes:

*  For the thicker older asparagus stalks we found that laying them on a plate and popping them into the microwave on high for 2-3 minutes softens them enough for soup making and makes them easier to cut into smaller pieces.

** We now make our own Italian Seasoning but you can buy similar in most supermarkets.

To make this into a vegetarian soup leave out the chorizo and use a vegetarian / vegan stock cube, vegetarian margarine such as Flora 100% plant based spread, and one of the dairy free milks or coconut milk.

Dairy-free Pastry-free Quiche - Easy Picture Recipe

One of the problems I have is pastry. I like it, it doesn't like me! Pastry tends to give me heartburn and acid reflux, so the hunt has been on for a substitute for pastry in some of our favourites dishes, quiche being one of them.

Whilst in Tesco recently I spotted a sign for a recipe for Elena's Cheeky Tortilla Quiche and thought it was worth a try... however, her recipe uses cheese and milk, both of which are no-no's for the dairy intolerant son of the family, so I went to experiment in the kitchen, and after three attempts, this was the result:

Dairy-free Pastry-free Quiche

INGREDIENTS:

1 plain tortilla wrap

4 medium eggs

sweetened soya milk - see below for quantity needed (we use Tesco sweetened soya milk)

2 large mushrooms sliced

1/2 small onion sliced into rings

4 sliced rings from a small green bell pepper 

100g sliced chorizo sausage (we use Aldi Spanish Spicy Chorizo Ring)

pinch ground nutmeg

1 green OXO cube

Equipment needed:

Quiche tray or flan dish 21.5cm / 8.5" diameter and 2.5cm / 1" deep internally

Frying pan or skillet

Measuring jug (at least 1/2 litre capacity)

Baking parchment

We used a ceramic quiche tray for baking, we tried the earlier version with a glass quiche tray and it didn't work as well as the ceramic one did, due to the way ceramic absorbs and holds the heat we think.  We have not tried this with a metal quiche tray.

Step 1...

Brush the base of the quiche tray with a very small amount of oil to help prevent the lining paper from moving once ingredients go into it.  Cut a circle of baking parchment as a tray liner making sure it stands a good inch above the rim of the tray to prevent accidental leakage into your oven.

Step 2... 

Place the tortilla flat inside the tray, curving it to fit the tray as below (the yellow marks are the oil showing through the parchment).

Step 3... 

Arrange the onion rings on the tortilla.

Step 4...

Arrange the mushroom slices on the onion rings.

Step 5...

Add the pepper rings even round the tray on top of the mushrooms and onion.

Step 6...

Put the chorizo slices into a dry frying pan or skillet (no oil needed) and heat it until the oil in the sausage leaks into the pan and the sausage is slightly browned underneath, turn over each slice and let it brown on the other side. It only takes 2-3 mins each side to do this.  

Step 7...

Whilst the chorizo is browning, crack the eggs into the measuring jug and mix gently with a fork to break up the yolk.  Add the crumbled OXO cube and a small pinch of nutmeg, then top up the egg mixture with the soya milk to around 450ml, mix soya milk into egg with fork and leave to stand for a few minutes.

Step 8...

Remove browned chorizo in frying pan / skillet from heat. It should look like this:

Step 9...

Arrange chorizo slices around the quiche tray between the pepper slices.

Step 10...

Carefully pour egg / soya milk mixture into the tortilla case making sure not to disturb the layout of your filling.

Step 11...

Bake on top shelf of oven for 50-60 minutes on Gas mark 6 / 200 °C / 400°F.  Test with a skewer or knife point to make sure filling is cooked (tip: if it comes out wet it needs longer!)

Step 12...

Slice and eat!  We found it is really nice hot from the oven but if you leave it to cool and eat cold later it is just as good, the texture is nice and dense without being chewy. 

Notes:

The original Tesco recipes calls for 4 tortillas which in our quiche tray would have left no room for the filling! The single tortilla works very well and the parchment provides the leakage protection that the original recipe uses the other tortillas for. 

If you use a different size quiche tray you will need to adjust the quantities slightly to make sure your tray is filled properly.