Spinach, Red Pepper, and Goat Cheese Frittata with Spanish Rose'

Ciao, amici, e benvenuti a Cépage et Cuisine!  Hello, friends, and welcome to Cépage et Cuisine, Mary’s and Brian’s wine and food blog.  As we have shared in a couple of earlier posts, we try to have at least one meatless day per week and today we’re sharing another of our meatless meals.  This dish is also a foray into a bit of Italian cuisine.

The dish today is a spinach, red pepper, and goat cheese frittata with hand-cut French fries.  It is delicious, easy, and has a variety of interesting and healthful ingredients with vivid flavors.  Mary says a frittata is easier to prepare than an omelet or a quiche and is incredibly versatile.  It’s almost a blank canvas for creative ideas.  The method Mary describes here is also great because it doesn’t require flipping to get both sides nicely done.  It is cooked first on the stovetop, then finished under the broiler in the oven.

Here’s Mary to discuss the ingredients and preparation.

I’ve made frittata several times, but this is the first time for this particular version.  I included spinach, olive oil, red bell peppers, garlic, marjoram, salt & pepper, eggs, and milk. Our bonus ingredient was chèvre, a goat cheese from France (but I forgot to include it in the pictures).  It is creamy, tangy, and adds complexity and excitement.  The spinach was blanched a little ahead of time, drained and blotted dry. I did that first thing and then moved on to chopping the red bell peppers and preparing the garlic.

The red bell peppers were sautéed in olive oil for 8-10 minutes in a non-stick pan (very important), then I pressed several cloves of garlic to add to the peppers, then the chopped spinach and marjoram. I wanted to use fresh marjoram leaves, but I couldn’t find it at my local grocery store, so I bought dried marjoram. I cooked the veggies for just a few minutes, then scooped them all into a bowl to cool on the counter.  I cleaned the pan and added a bit of olive oil for the eggs.

In a large bowl, I whisked the eggs with 2 tablespoons of milk. Salt and pepper were added, then the veggies were stirred in. This is when I added chopped slices of fresh chevre to the eggs. The egg mixture was poured into the hot skillet to cook for about 10 minutes. When the eggs were almost set, I put the pan under a hot broiler for about 5 minutes, being careful not to burn the frittata.

Here’s the finished frittata right out of the oven.

Brian here:  About French fries, they have been really trivialized by fast food.  Those of us of a certain age remember when homemade French fries were a rare and special treat, from potatoes freshly peeled and sliced by our mothers, then cooked to a golden brown in oil in a frying pan and served piping hot.  Well, folks, I’m here to tell you fries made like this are still a real treat.  The entire dinner, even with the chopping and peeling, took less than an hour to prepare, and that includes homemade fries.  Now back to Mary.

We have made homemade French fries quite often, but in the past I have just heated oil in a saucepan. Our one nod to modern convenience THIS TIME was a Fry Daddy deep fryer.  What a huge difference that made! It was SO much easier! When I started cooking the red bell peppers, I put oil in the Fry Daddy and heated it up (that took 15 minutes). By the time the eggs were cooking on the stovetop, Brian had peeled and cut the potatoes into fries and put them in the basket. We figured they would take about 15 minutes in the deep fryer, and that was about right. The frittata came out of the oven about the same time the fries were ready.

Here are the frittata and fries, ready for assembly and devouring.  Now back to Brian to talk about the wine.

A meatless dish like this doesn’t require a heavy or complicated wine.  Like the shrimp and grits dinner we described recently, I decided a light-bodied, refreshing, racy rose’ would be great for the frittata and fries, especially with the chèvre.  I like to use salsa with this dinner and the rose’ was also a great contrast with the flavors and mild spiciness of the salsa.  You can just about take your pick of rose’ and any would be fine.  Tapeña is a producer from central Spain that makes inexpensive, easy-to-drink wines from native Spanish grapes.  This particular rose’ is a blend of Garnacha, Syrah, and Monastrell.  Garnacha is also known as Grenache and Monastrell as Mourvedre.  I think the grapes were probably picked before they were fully mature because the wine was quite brisk of acidity with bright red berry and melon notes.  The alcohol was only 12.5%.  It doesn’t require much pondering...you just enjoy it with dinner.  It will be a great summertime sipper, too.  It cost only $11 at Briarwood Wines and Spirits in Jackson.

Here’s another look at a delicious, light, casual Friday night dinner with my wonderful wife.  That’s our post for today.  We hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting.  Keep checking back at Cépage et Cuisine for more articles about wine and food.  In the meantime,

Cheers, everybody!

Mary♥Brian