Week 3: Hubs wings it

Earlier this week, the wife had surgery and before visiting hours at the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philly, I, the husband of the blogger, visited Morning Glory, a breakfast/brunch spot in Society Hill to pick up some frittata tips. Frittatas are their specialty and I knew I'd be handling the duties this weekend.

I sat at the counter and watched the chef, who happily answered my inquiries: 6-inch teflon skillet, potatoes on the side, 4 eggs per person (for a frittata I could barely finish), cheese on top before broiler to seal egg moisture, anything you want inside. This weekend, with wife recuperating on the couch, I endeavored to recreate what I had learned. With so much food delivered by friends, I decided to make a "whatever's in the fridge" frittata, which turned out to be spinach, arugula, onions, cheddar cheese, and of course truffle salt (our new savory indulgence). And because we have only an 8-inch cast iron skillet, we used six eggs and plenty of olive oil. That was about as much as I had planned, the key difference being that I would put only a few potatoes in the frittata and the rest on the side.

I started by slicing half a red onion and chopping about 3 cups of chopped multi-colored fingerling potatoes. I boiled the taters until soft and sauteed the onions in oil. Then I fixed myself a vodka cocktail and grated a healthy dose of Cabot extra sharp cheddar. Once the taters were soft, I put them in olive oil with some Old Bay and hoped they'd get crunchy in time (which they almost did). Onto the frittata. I heated some oil in the cast iron skillet and poured in 6 beaten eggs. I learned from the chef at Morning Glory to use high heat on the eggs and not to let them form an edge for quite a while. I really swirled them around like I was scrambling them before finally letting them settle. There was much less wet egg than before. Then I turned the fire off and dumped in the sauteed onion (I did send pinch of the onions into the taters so they'd get that burned onion flavor), a few taters, some truffle salt, a layer of spinach and arugula, and covered the whole mess with cheese. Into the broiler it went looking bushy and weird, but smelling good.

A friend gave us a loaf of delicious rosemary bread from a Princeton bakery, which I sliced and put in the toaster. The taters were still cooking and I wondered if I'd boiled them too long, if they were too wet to get crunchy. Still, the combination of Old Bay, truffle salt, and burnt onion was pretty awesome. I was pleased when I pulled out the frittata. The cheese was melted; the egg was fluffly and cooked through; the spinach and arugula wilted properly; and the edge of the eggs firm but not too dry nor stuck to the skillet.

We sat and ate. A bite of cheesy frittata on toasted rosemary bread washed down with savory potatoes (and a second vodka drink) was really good. Not quite Morning Glory, but not bad for a substitute chef, if I may say so myself. Wifey was less liberal with the compliments, but her plate was clean!

The animals did not help in the kitchen this week. They chose to knit & rest with the Wife.