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French Fridays with Dorie: Potato Chip Tortilla
I was absent for the past couple of weeks, so it’s good to be back for French Fridays with Dorie! My excuse was an extended celebration of my 50th birthday. This week’s Potato Chip Tortilla was an easy way to return. Tortilla is Spanish for frittata. Though Dorie recommends this recipe as a light lunch or appetizer, I served this near-instant baked omelet for dinner.
I couldn’t believe how easily this came together. And, the ingredients are things I usually have around. We get a dozen eggs every other week from Howard’s co-worker’s chickens. Miraculously, the sage in my back door herb garden is hanging in there, so was homegrown. And there’s often a near-forgotten bag of chips leftover from a weekend lunch that’s hanging around in the snack drawer.
Here’s what you do: You crush half a bag of potato chips (I used reduced fat chips), then whisk together eggs, scallions, fresh herbs (I used sage and parsley), garlic, and a pinch of red pepper and combine with the chips. Then, you cook the eggs in a small well-oiled cast-iron skillet. The pan I used was about 7 inches which gave nice height to the tortilla. I thought it might be a little tall, so I gave it a few extra minutes and cooked it for about 5 minutes on the stovetop, until mostly set, then it spent a minute or two under the broiler to finish the top. The tortilla slid right out of the pan onto a cutting board, where I cut it in half and served it for dinner with a green salad on the side.
It was a hit! Howard loved it as did I. This would be great for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It’s the perfect thing to use up a leftover bag of potato chips.
Along with not being able to cook with my cyber-friends the past couple of weeks, I’ve missed being able to read their blogs too. You can check out the other Dorista’s posts about their tortillas here. If you’d like the recipe, you’ll have to buy the book, Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table. If you don’t have it, it’s the perfect holiday gift for you or your favorite home cook.
I’m looking forward to next week’s recipe, Crème Brulée, my favorite restaurant dessert, but something I’ve never tried at home! Until then, Happy French Friday!
French Fridays with Dorie: Cook’s Choice
I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. We did. It was a sort of progressive Thanksgiving, dinner and dessert #1 with Howard’s aunt, uncle, and cousin, followed by dessert #2 with our friends next-door. I made this cranberry sauce recipe to bring to dinner and made a pumpkin cake for dessert with the neighbors.
For French Fridays with Dorie this week, Laurie made it “Cook’s Choice”. This cook chose the Lyonnaise Garlic and Herb Cheese, subtitled Boursin’s mama by Dorie, on pages 20-21 of Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table. This was supposed to be a pre-Thanskgiving snack, but I didn’t have time to make it until today, so it was the appetizer for our post-Thanksgiving turkey enchiladas.
Ingredients were promising: ricotta cheese, chopped shallot, minced garlic, fresh herbs, olive oil, and a smidge of vinegar. The ricotta drains overnight to thicken it up before gently folding in the other ingredients, then letting it sit in the refrigerator for a few hours to allow the flavors to blend.
Miraculously, herbs are still growing in my herb garden. I never would have expected to be able to use my own herbs on November 25. We haven’t really had a hard frost yet. The parsley is still going strong, and the chives and chervil must think it is spring because there is new growth.
I really wanted to like this cheese spread, and I might like it better another time with some tweaks. The garlic and shallot flavors weren’t as strong as I expected, and I even added an extra clove of garlic. The cheese tasted mostly of the fresh cheese, not of the aromatics I added. I tried adding more salt, but it still didn’t boost the flavors quite enough. If I try this again, I would double the amount of both the garlic and shallot that I used, maybe the herbs too.
I served the cheese along with black olive tapenade with baguette toasts. Howard experimented by spreading a layer of tapenade on the toast and topped it with the cheese spread which turned out to be a winner idea. The combination of both spreads in each bite made up for the blandness of the cheese spread.
(Update on Sunday: The cheese spread has really improved the longer it sits. Initially, it sat about 4 hours, after which I found it bland. Both yesterday and today, I spread this on toast for breakfast and with a little sprinkle of salt on top, it was perfect. I’m no longer disappointed.)
I’m looking forward to reading the other Dorista’s posts this week because each cook chose their own Dorie recipe. It will give me a preview of other recipes from the book that I haven’t tried yet. If you’re interested you can find those links here.
A Plateful of Happiness 