Kitchen Adventure: Fritata

I love potato omelet and I love ground meat omelet (which we call torta). Growing up, I always looked forward to having one of these for breakfast prepared by my mother. I love potato omelet so much that I tried cooking this for my breakfast when I was still working in the Middle East (it was one of the few dishes I could cook at that time). Of course, when my house mate saw this, she gave me a look that says "potato for omelet? that's weird.  Since potato omelet was always a favorite at home, I just never thought that others would find it weird (or even wrong).

It was only recently that I learned that potato omelet is fritata in Spain (it just have sliced potatoes while my mother's omelet has cubed ones but the general idea is the same). In fact, this is a favorite tapa (appetizer) in Spain.It only goes to show that one should not scoff at something just because it is unfamiliar to us.

Anyway, I am digressing. Back to my Fritata. Now that I am also a mother and a wife plus thousands of kilometers away from my mother (so I couldn't ask her to cook for us. hahaha), I have no choice but to cook to feed my hungry boys (dramatisch itetch).  With the memories of the different tortas that my mother has cooked in the past, I have decided to make my own by combining two of my favorite omelets (tortang giniling with potato).

And after a long and winding introduction, here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

around 200 g of ground pork
2 large potatoes
6 eggs
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 large shallot, sliced
3 tbsp. olive oil
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Procedure:

Peel and dice the potatoes and prepare the garlic and shallot. Set aside. Meanwhile in a bowl, beat the eggs and season with a little salt.

Heat the olive oil in a pan. Fry the potatoes until golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and place on a plate. With the remaining oil in the pan, sautée the garlic until light yellow. Put in the shallot and sautée until translucent. Put in the ground meat and continue stirring until the meat is loosed and  browned. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper.

When the ground meat is browned (with little to no liquid left), return the potatoes in the pan and mix them with the ground meat. Pour in the beaten eggs and cover the pan tightly. Let it cook for 15 to 20 minutes or until the top of the egg mixture has started to solidify.  Remove the lid, and place a plate on top of the pan (the plate should be large enough to cover the pan) then flip the omelet (or fritata) on the plate. Return the pan on the stove and slide back the omelet in the pan to cook the other side. Let it cook for a few more minutes (around 5 minutes).

Serve the Filipino way with tomato ketchup and steamed rice.

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P.S.

When I first cooked this dish here in Norway, I used a smaller pan and cooked it in two batches because I didn't have a plate large enough to cover my bigger pan (which is needed when I flip the omelet). However, when I cooked the dish in the picture, I was so lazy to do it in two batches and so I decided to use my bigger pan forgetting the reason why I decided to cook in two batches when I did it before. I only remembered this when I was ready to flip the omelet on a plate. Imagine my panic when I realized my mistake.  I was ready to use the plate from my microwave oven when I remembered that we have 4 pizza plates in our cupboard (which Michael and I never use).  The pizza plate was big enough for my purpose.

And so, that was the plate that you see in the picture. hehehehe.