Happy Independence Day! We’ve the day off today to celebrate Korea’s independence from Japan. It’s called Gwangbokjeol which literally translates to “Restoration of Light Day” according to Wikipedia. My academic training makes me cringe at citing Wiki as my source, but this is a food blog, and mine, to boot, so I can do whatever I want, right?
We woke up late this morning, having stayed up late reading last night, and I decided to make what I have been calling a frittata, but is really not a frittata at all. Or is it? I don’t know. In my mind, frittatas don’t have any cream or cream-like additions, whereas quiches (and this thing I made) do. But the thing I made isn’t a quiche because it doesn’t have a crust, which quiches traditionally do, and it uses plain yogurt in the place of cream, which might make the French cringe. I am going to call it eggy pie.
In any case, I had a ton of peppers in the fridge because they were the cheapest vegetable at the grocery store, but only if bought in a bag of 8. (Who, may I ask, EVER needs 8 bell peppers??) I cut a couple of them into quarters, rubbed a teensy bit of olive oil on them, and shoved them into a hot oven to roast for about half an hour. This would take less time on a grill, or if you have a broiler, or even a gas range. You just need the skin to blacken in places and the flesh to get a wee bit soft. When this happens, remove them from the heat and throw them in a zip top bag for a few minutes. The steam will make them super easy to peel.
While my peppers were a-roasting, I sautéed some shiitake mushrooms in melted butter (more than you’d probably like, but they just soak it up and it tastes so good) over high heat. Add a tiny bit of oil (canola, coconut, olive, whatever) to raise the smoking point. The hotter the pan, the better the mushrooms brown, but you don’t want to smoke up the whole house, or in our case, room. When the mushrooms were good and brown, I added a two-fingered pinch of salt (kosher or coarse sea salt) and some sliced red onion, and turned the heat down to about 75%. Then I ground a bunch of black pepper over the whole mess and left it more or less alone so that the onion could soften, stirring every couple of minutes.
(Look! My nails match my salt cup! That was totally unintentional.)
In a bowl (Alton Brown, whose scientific mind I admire greatly, would tell you to use a non-reactive one – stainless steel to be exact) I cracked 7 eggs, to which I added about a cup of plain yogurt, a half teaspoon of ground mustard, another pinch of salt, and a generous grinding of black pepper. Why yogurt and not cream, you ask? Because I had yogurt and not cream, and given the amount of butter in the mushrooms (don’t skimp, even if your health conscious partner/spouse/roomie gets all glare-y!) I thought it would be best to be a little healthy, though if I had cream, I’d use it in a heartbeat. (Recently I’ve been reading a lot about healthy fat, and I’ve totally jumped on that train. Low-fat food has the same sketchy, back-alley feel as margarine in my mind.) I whisked and whisked and whisked until everything was combined and airy feeling. (I’m not sure how else to describe it, the mixture just looks a little airy.)
Then I grated a bucketload of cheese. Not really a bucket load, about a cup of Monterey Jack.
Once everything was ready – my peppers peeled, mushrooms browned, onions softened, eggs whipped, cheese grated, 8″ cake pan buttered – I assembled.
Mushrooms and onions on bottom, followed by sliced peppers, a little bit of the cheese, and some leftover roasted asparagus from dinner the other night. Egg mixture poured over the whole thing and topped with the remainder of the cheese.
I popped it into the oven at about 200 degrees Celsius/ 400 degrees Fahrenheit (392 to be perfectly exact) for 40 minutes. Then I waited ten minutes, sliced it, and ate. It was delicious.
Note: If you don’t have, say red peppers, don’t worry, you can put just about any combination of vegetables and/or meat into this and it will be delicious. Just try to keep the water level down, so if you use spinach or some sort of green, sauté it first, and then squeeze most of the water out of it.
Filed under: Main Dishes
