bacon, broccoli, and cheese frittata
(omnivorous)

recipe by mb

just the recipe

what I was looking for

Some friends of mine just went for a visit up to Vermont and came back with some (drool, drool) Harrington's bacon as a present for us. If you don't know Harrington's, and you eat meat, you should check them out. I consider myself somewhat of a bacon connoisseur, and I can confidently say that their bacon is the best in the entire world. To give you an idea of how much I believe that, I keep a jar of bacon fat in my fridge, but only Harrington's fat; I will not let it be sullied by any lesser bacon. So I was looking for something that could feature this beautiful bacon.

what I made

I used Alice Waters's chard frittata from The Art of Simple Food (pages 166-167) as my jumping-off point, but I really made this recipe my own.

grades for my version

healthy	D	Don't eat this every day.
fast	B	Letting a frittata fully cook on the stovetop (instead of in the oven, as I've always seen it done before) takes a little while.
easy	B	All this nonsense of pulling back the set eggs to let the uncooked eggs flow under ... it isn't actually as easy as I want it to be.
cheap	B	This would be a nicely cheap recipe except for that fabulous bacon, which is only ever in our house if it's a gift.
delicious	A	If there's a way to go wrong with this bacon, I surely don't know it.

yield

Fed two extremely hungry people and a toddler, with enough left over for a midnight snack. I'm going to give it a nice four servings.

equipment

   a frying pan (preferably nonstick)
   a cheese grater
   a medium bowl
   a pancake turner

to be prepped

ingredients	Alice	mb	why?
vegetable	chard, 1 head chopped	broccoli, 2 cups chopped	easier [1]
cheese	---	½ cup shredded extra-sharp cheddar	tastier [2]
bacon	---	4 slices	tastier
Notes
[1]	This is one of those classic mb cooking things: I always have broccoli in the house, buying chard would be harder than just using the broccoli I already have. And I love broccoli, so it surely does no harm.
[2]	This is one of my all-time favorite flavor combinations ... eggs, broccoli, and sharp cheddar. Oh yum.

Chop the broccoli into small florets and set it aside.

Grate the cheese and then set it aside as well.

In a nonstick frying pan cook your bacon over medium heat until it is fairly crispy, then remove it from the pan and let it drain on some paper towels. Reserve 3 Tablespoons of the rendered bacon fat and dispose of the rest.

Now put the 3 Tablespoons of bacon fat back into the pan, set the heat on medium-low and throw the broccoli into the pan. Let it fry until it turns bright green and is just barely beginning to soften.

Now crumble the bacon into the pan and stir everything up.

the eggs and seasonings

ingredients	Alice	mb	why?
eggs	6	6	no change
salt	to taste	to taste	no change
black pepper	to taste	to taste	no change
cayenne pepper	1 pinch	---	tastier
olive oil	2 Tablespoons	---	tastier ? [1]
garlic	4 cloves, chopped	---	tastier [2]
Notes
[1]	Now, I've never heard of anybody suggesting that you mix olive oil into the eggs pre-cooking them before. Maybe I didn't do it because I thought there was enough fat in the recipe as it was, or maybe it was simple because the idea freaked me out. Whatever the reason, I left it out.
[2]	How can something be tastier WITHOUT garlic? I really wanted the bacon to be the primary flavor in this. Garlic's good, but it's not bacon.

Mix the eggs, salt, and pepper together in a medium bowl until thoroughly combined. Then pour the mixture into the frying pan, over the broccoli and bacon.

Let the pan sit until the eggs are beginning to set (about 2 minutes), then carefully lift up one edge of the frittata with your pancake turner and let the uncooked egg flow into the space you create. Do this around the entire frittata and then let it sit again, for another two minutes, and repeat. Keep repeating until everything is set.

Now sprinkle the cheese on top, give it a moment to melt just a little, and then take the pan off the heat, slice and serve.

This is a wonderful dish to make for breakfast or brunch, obviously. I can also attest to it being delicious for dinner after a hard day at work, served with crusty bread and a simple salad.

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