Lidia's Frittata Recipe

Lidia Bastianich teaches you how to make a Frittata, which is an Italian omelet.

Lidia's Frittata Recipe We’re here at Lidia, and I'm going to show you a great quick dish, five minutes dish under $5.00, a nice frittata. The ingredients are simple but what’s important is the bread. Get yourself some good bread. In this case, we have some nice facachio or just some good grilled country bread. So, let me show you. Some spinach, just shredded spinach, raw shredded spinach just like that, and spinach just takes a few minutes to wilt. Chop it up a little bit. Get yourself -- this is a six-inch non-stick pan. That’s important for the Frittata. A little bit of oil, a little bit of butter and while the spinach wilts, I'm covering it so it gets done quicker. Let's make the Frittata, the eggs, three eggs. This is recommended for lunch so you can make it with two eggs, you can make it with three eggs but when I'm hungry for lunch, I can go for three eggs. Three eggs, okay, little bit of salt, just whisk it. Now, you could put a little bit of milk, a little bit of cream in here but this is fine because I will add a ricotta in there, which is one of my favorites. We’ll grate it, grana, a little peas, frozen peas are fine, freshly blanched such as are good. Okay, here I have some dried tomatoes. Mix it all in the eggs. Let's check the spinach. Okay, the spinach is done. That’s all we want it grilled just like that. Spread it out and let's pour the egg mixture right in there. Once you’ve put the egg mixture in there, lower the fire because you don’t want it to burn from the underneath. Don’t mix it, just leave it. Let it form a crest underneath. To that, I'm going to add some ricotta, just a little bit of ricotta. Now, if you don’t have ricotta, you could add cottage cheese, of course, you could add small pieces of mozzarella, of course. We let that simmer slowly, cook underneath, form a crest. Cover it again so the top. Now traditionally, this gets food in the oven. But, you don’t want that a little stirred up of an oven for one frittata so cover it, lower the flame a little bit Okay, food has to taste good that has to also look good. So what ever you have, if you have some chive flowers, you can chop some chives in there and just add the chives flowers on the sides, some shredded spinach, okay. It needs a little more -- now you’ve done that too fast because then you’ve scorched burn the bottom and the inside is not. All the ingredients have to get nice and warm. The ricotta has to melt. frittatas you can -- this is one way with the ingredients that I have here today in the kitchen but you can make with any asparagus, broccoli. Just make sure that the vegetables have enough time to cook. Leafy vegetables are always good charred and are always great in a frittata. The underneath has cooked, solidified. Now, the one easy way to maybe flip it, I would flip it but let me show you how to flip it. If you have another pan, you’ll flip it like that and then you just cover it again and you do your -- just one second because it’s hot -- and you do your flipping of the frittata right in the pan. On one side, the other side just needs to kind of solidify. Okay, you can just cut it in half, slide it like that and like that. I have three eggs in there and there are a lot of frittata there. Could you have made them with two eggs that are a little less if you have smaller bread? Yes. If you have a facachio like that, that will need three eggs but it’s so much enough for a lunch for two so you decide how big you want your Frittata. These are the ingredients. Let me just cut it in half. Serve with a nice glass of rose. You want a nice presentation again, the spinach. So, let me take a little bite here. Aha, I'm going to take the bite with the ricotta. This is the ricotta. Hmm, delicious! Salute!