Frittata is an egg-based Italian dish, similar to an omelette, crustless

quiche Quiche ( ) is a French tart consisting of a pastry crust filled with savoury custard and pieces of cheese, meat, seafood or vegetables. A well-known variant is quiche lorraine, which includes lardons or bacon. Quiche may be served hot, wa ...

or scrambled eggs, enriched with additional ingredients such as

meat Meat is animal Tissue (biology), tissue, often muscle, that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted and farmed other animals for meat since prehistory. The Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of vertebrates, including chickens, sheep, ...

cheese Cheese is a type of dairy product produced in a range of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk (usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats or sheep). During prod ...

s or

vegetable Vegetables are edible parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. This original meaning is still commonly used, and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including edible flower, flo ...

History

The

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

word ''frittata'' derives from ''friggere'' and roughly means 'fried'. This was originally a general term for cooking eggs in a frying pan (or skillet in the US), anywhere on the spectrum from fried egg, through conventional omelette, to an Italian version of the

Spanish omelette Spanish omelette or Spanish tortilla is a traditional dish from Spain. It is celebrated as one of the most popular dishes of the Spanish cuisine. It is an omelette made with eggs and potatoes, usually including onion. It is often served at roo ...

, made with fried

potato The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...

. Outside Italy, ''frittata'' was seen as equivalent to “omelette” until at least the mid-1950s. ''Frittata'' has come to be a term for a distinct variation that Delia Smith describes as “Italy's version of an open-face omelette”. When used in this sense, there are four key differences from a conventional omelette: * While there may or may not be additional ingredients, such as cubed potato, such ingredients are combined with the beaten egg mixture while the eggs are still raw rather than being laid over the mostly cooked egg mixture before it is folded, as in an omelette. * Eggs may be beaten vigorously, to incorporate more air than traditional savory omelettes, to allow a deeper filling and a fluffier result. * The mixture is cooked over a very low heat, more slowly than an omelette, for at least five minutes, typically 15, until the underside is set, but the top is still runny. * The partly cooked frittata is not folded to enclose its contents, like an omelette, but is instead either turned over in full, or grilled briefly under an intense

salamander Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All t ...

to set the top layer, or baked for around five minutes.

References

{{Cuisine of Italy Egg dishes Omelettes Italian cuisine

History

See also

References