Mexican Frittata- My style

 


“First, knife skills. Then, knowing how to control heat. Most important is choosing the right product .. the rest is simple.” – Justin Quek

My  friends often lament on how hard cooking is. I have never encountered anything so exciting as cooking. And those of you out there who feel an adrenaline rush every time you chop a zucchini or bake a cake would agree with me on this. Sometimes it's not about buying all those expensive stuff to make your stuff look good, it's about appropriating, inventing with the stuff at hand that thrills cooks. If you feel the way I do, you also would get these bouts of ideas flashing like a bulb ( like the ones you see in comic books) while you are reading or travelling or in a shower. It comes like a flash and before you realize you are experiencing what I call a 'culinary epiphany'. It all begins with your visualization exercises with food. There are times you look at ingredients and you can visualise how you would want to transform them into a dish of our preference. Trust me it's not an obsession, it's jsut like how you visualise an image before you want to paint or visualise how you would want to dress uo for a party even before you try out clothes. For some of us who love cooking we visualise all the while at grocery stores, at restaurants. Sometimes we sketch an image when we read the description of a dish on the menu and wait in anticipation to match our expectations with the dish that arrives on our table. Culinary epiphany is yet another experience when out of nowhere you get an idea and you are compelled to go ahead and experiment it. 

I had some black eyes peas with me for three months and off lately I am constantly worried about infestation because my lentils don't seem to survive for more than three months and when the ingredients reach this stage I frantically search for different recipes because it gets boring to make the same old stuff with a huge quantity of the same  ingredient. So this time I had some 500gms of black eyes peas half of which I used for two different curries and I was left with nearly 200 gm. I was leaving for Chennai in a day or two and therefore was emptying my refrigerator.

And that's when I had this epiphany while I was in the shower- how about a frittata with black eyed peas. I searched the internet for recipes with eggs and black eyed peas and to my dismay I found none. I thought there would be Mexican recipes that thought along the same line but didn't find any either. All I had was few tomatoes and capsicums and eggs so I went ahead an made this frittata. I was worried they would break when sliced because of the weight of the beans but it didn't and I was happy I tried this out. My hubby had another reason to get excited over this recipe. He was waiting to experiment with his egg cracker a fancy purchase of his that guarantees breaking an egg the perfect way sparing egg shells in your bowl. Though I found it quite fancy an equipment for the kitchen I allow him to use it every time to see his face glow with pride when he uses it.

 

So that's the story of my Mexican frittata.If I tried this again I would love to add some celery and cheese but I don't think it tasted bad without these two ingredients. It was quite filling for a breakfast and makes me wonder why I didn't think of it as a meal before. So do you have a secret recipe? Something that came to you as an epiphany?

Ingredients for Mexican Frittata- My Style

Black eyed peas (cooked)- 200gm
Eggs - 5
Milk- 3 tbsp
Onion-1
Capsicum- 2
Tomatoes- 2
Olive oil- 2 tbsp
Paprika- 1 tsp
Salt- to taste
Sweet basil- 2 tsp



Directions

Heat oil in a pan. Add the chopped onions and capsicum, saute till it softens. Add the black eyed peas that's precooked. Add paprika , sweet basil and salt and cook for 5 minutes. In a bowl whisk the eggs with milk and salt. Grease a bowl with oil and line with the black eyed peas- capsicum mix. Sprinkle chopped tomatoes on top of the peas.

 

 Now pour the egg mixture. Bake at 180 degrees for 30-40 minutes till the top of the frittata turns golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let it cool for 5 minutes before slicing the frittata.