Making a Frittata Omelet

Stephanie Rose: Hi, I am Stephanie Rose in Stephanie Rose's Foodstyling and we are making some fabulous, awesome omelets today. This is a very special one because it's an open face omelet, it's called a Frittata and we are going to put inside of it leeks, potatoes that are sauted and sweated but the potatoes will be brown. Parsley, salt and pepper and it's a very interesting of the cooking. I am actually going to be flipping it. They do make Frittata pans out there that are kind of connected, so you can flip them but you will see I am going to be flipping it without the fancy pan and it takes about eight eggs, that's quite a bit, which you need because we want it to be nice and thick, you don't want to be this flat frenzy pancake.

I have got about half a cup of cream, heavy cream, we are not going to skimp on this recipe. First I am going to start because the potatoes take the longest I am going to start cutting them. We want them sliced, I am using red potatoes which are waxy, waxier potatoes, not too much starch and we are going to do it about an eighth of an inch and I am going to use my handy dandy mandolin, this is a Benriner, these are a Japanese and they are extremely sharp so for your kids out there do not play with this instrument, it is very sharp and can cut your finger tips off. So be very careful. It actually comes with a guard. So you could put the little guard on here and slice it that way but I have been doing this for many years and actually it's probably easier do it on the board. Actually even on the machine it says watch your fingers, so be very careful. I am going slice these thin, maybe not too thin, I have already sliced a couple. If you are using regular size ones you need about two or three and these are baby potatoes, so I am using more than that, 3 or 4 and I am don't use these little indents, I throw those away, keep slicing, slicing and then we are going to saute them in butter, I think that should be enough, and what the hay one more, never have too many potatoes or two much cheese or too much butter, this is all yummy. Okay it's great. Now I am going to put those aside because now I have to cut up my leeks and we will start cooking these later. Now leeks are particularly dirty, so I have got one over here and I am just going to show you, we want to slice them, I like little rounds and you only want to use, you don't want to use too much, you certainly don't want to use this dirt part but again save it because you could add that to your Shiitake mushroom stems and parsley stems and put that in your stock because it's really delicious and there is a lot of flavor but there is a lot of dirt. These are exceptionally clean so I am just going to slice it really thinly, if it's difficult for you to slice it this way go right ahead and cut it in half and then put it down on the flat side and then you can slice it easier. I honestly have never seen a leek this clean, I did one the other day and it was at least three tablespoons of dirt at the bottom of the ball and that's what we do after we have sliced it is we are going to put it in a bowl, we will fill cold water, sort of give it a water bath and give it a good wash and usually all the dirt settles down at the bottom and then you can just pull the leeks out with your hand or pour it into a sieve, I don't like pouring it into anything because then the dirt is going to get back in and you have got to rinse it. So it's just easier to take it out with your hands and why not? I like to put my hands in things anyway. So it looks like these are ready to go and I am just going to mix up my egg mixture and get that ready so then we can actually start cooking, add one more egg because I already have seven eggs in there, add one more. This is a serious meal, this Frittata you will see comes out it's ten inches, we hope it's going to be about two inches high, you could feed six people. So a little bit of salt and pepper, whip that up and we have brought our heavy cream, we are not skimping today. So everything is getting sauted in butter, so why not? more butter more better Okay, now we have got our potatoes ready and our leeks are nice and clean and a little dried off, we are ready to start sweating them in butter and sauteying the potatoes and get them nice and round. We are ready to sweat our leeks. I have warmed up my pan, I am going to put at least two tablespoons of butter, pour them in here, look at that, they are beautiful, great color. Then what I am going to do is I am going to move these to the back burner and let them cook nice and slowly and now we are going to pour our potatoes in here into the butter, I want them to cook nice and brown, that's good. And for now all of my ingredients are - we are ready to incorporate it into a Frittata. Now we have already made the egg mixture here which is the eight whole eggs, half a cup of heavy cream, why not? We have salted it and peppered it and we want to give it a good mix, simply splash, it's okay. So this is what mixing is about, now and then you want to beat it, mix it, so everything gets nicely incorporated. Now I am going to add my parsley, it's about two tablespoons of parsley there, we never have too much parsley. I am going to add the cheese, this is the Gruyere cheese which is the cow's milk cheese and it's nice and dry and it's one of the best baking cheeses from Switzerland. We love Gruyere. It can be a little pricey too. We want to make sure everything gets incorporated. Now these have cooled down. So I feel okay to add them now. I am going to start with the leeks. We want everything to be nicely incorporated. So we have even layers. And then we add our potatoes, you can't beat this, you have got potatoes and leeks and cheese and eggs and it's going to be delicious. Now once I fully incorporated this, we are going to go back to the stove, melt the butter and I am going to start cooking this. Oh looks delicious, I am just going to pour it in. Spread it out, make sure it's all in here and then I am going to do the same kind of thing that we did with the omelette, besides when they start cooking I am going to lift them up and try to get a little more of the mixture, underneath, I have chosen this rubber spatula for this one not the wooden one because this is just very flexible, I can get around those edges easily, fits together nicely, but it's hot. So I am going to get my rag and we are going to flip and keep it covered because we want it to simmer, covered for a little bit. We have our finished Frittata, I have cooked it for another three or four minutes and it looks it's loosening up around the edges and I am going to split then on top and we are going to see what happens and viola Gruyere, potato leek, parsley, Frittata. Now I thought we could serve this with a nice little white salad, a glass of wine, a lunch on a Sunday afternoon when you are going to have a siesta. See how well it's sliced, I am just going to slice it like a wood, a pie almost and it is like a pie, it's like an egg pie. Lovely, I am going to put the omelet on our plate, delicious, enjoy.