Sunday 11 November 2012

Kale frittata

I'm very fickle in my affections. I know me and the slow cooker only just fell in love. And I'm not saying I don't still love it (made a delish pineapple and onion pulled pork just the other night. And when I say night, I literally mean night. I even woke up a few times to the wonderful smell in my apartment. Ok, to be honest, I woke up to leg cramps, but the pork still smelled amazing). But me and the slow cooker are past the initial infatuation, you know when you want to spend every moment together and tell each other everything. I also have to admit, I'm in love. Don't tell my slow cooker, but I found something else. And that something is my brand new shiny, black beauty. My cast iron skillet.

I have wanted to get a cast iron skillet for ages, but I'm still trying not to overcrowd my super tiny kitchen. Apparently I'm very unsuccessful at that... After watching the bakers on Great British Bakeoff make Tarte Tatins I finally cracked. Off to Amazon I went, and ordered a cute little 20 cm skillet of a brand that had quite good consumer reviews. It was also important to me to get a skillet which was ready to use and did not require seasoning as all reviews of pans that were not pre-seasoned said that it makes your apartment smell horrible, and having only just got rid of the smell of smoke from my apartment, I was not too keen on inducing any new smells.

A Tarte Tatin was going to be the first thing I made in my brand new skillet. However, I can't justify that kind of decadence in the middle of the week. But I still wanted to give my new pan a trial run. And I happened across this recipe for Kale Frittata on My Kitchen in the Rockies which was perfect as I had ordered some curly kale and had no idea what to use it for. I modified the amounts of ingredients slightly, and omitted the cheese from the original recipe.

Kale frittata (serves 4):

2 tbsp oil
1 onion
100 g curly kale
1 clove of garlic
65 g pepperoni
6 eggs

One serving contains 285 kcal (22g fat, 8.5g carbs, 14g protein).


The howto:
Preheat the grill. Chop the onion, garlic, pepperoni and kale. Whisk eggs, season with salt and pepper if you want, although I thought the pepperoni was plenty of flavour and no extra seasoning was needed. Heat oil in an oven proof skillet, and cook the onion for a few minutes until translucent. Add kale in two or three batches and cook until kale begins to wilt. After adding all kale, add garlic and pepperoni and cook for a few minutes more. Turn down the heat to medium/low and add the eggs. Stir so that the eggs distribute evenly, and cook until set on the sides of the skillet but not in the middle. Add cheese if you want to, and finish cooking under the grill for a few minutes. Let set for a few minutes in the skillet before serving.

The verdict:
During the last year or so, I have eaten eggs in pretty much any form. Hard boiled, runny yolk, poached, fried, scrambled, in the form of omelettes, mini muffins, oven cooked in tomato sauce, with banana... You name it, if it's got egg, I've done it. So this was a really nice change. I think I have pinned a few different frittata recipes and am excited to be able to finally cook them.

This isn't the healthiest start to the morning, as the pepperoni has quite a lot of fat and salt. But just for a change, this was nice. It can't be helped, but the salty and spicy pepperoni complements the kale and eggs perfectly. Next time I think I might add a bit more onion, as I really liked the combination of kale, pepperoni and onion. Also, I think I might have slight overcooked my frittata, so next time I will leave it a bit more runny in the middle before putting it in the oven. If you don't have kale, I think spinach would also work perfectly, although the kale adds a nice crunch. And replacing the pepperoni with bacon would probably also work perfectly. So as a summary, I now have one more way to cook eggs. And the good thing with the frittata is that leftovers can be re-heated the next day, either for brekkie or as a light lunch together with a green salad. I think my new love will see a lot of use in my kitchen.










 

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