"I haven't clawed my way up the food chain to be a vegetarian." -Charles Jarvis
This week Shay is a vegetarian - a vegan, actually. She and a couple of her friends have decided to eat this way. This will probably only last a couple of weeks, but for whatever period Shay is reading ingredient lists. She can't eat the bread we normally buy because that bread is made with eggs and milk. This is my granddaughter who can on any given day eat more roast beef than an over the road truck driver.
We go through these phases with Shay and Frank on a regular basis. Frank has a shorter attention span so his phases last only a couple of days. Shay can go at least a month.
Shay's new eating program resurrected memories of my Catholic upbringing in the days when we did not eat meat on Fridays. In New Orleans this was not much of a sacrifice given the variety of seafood available to us. To this day in New Orleans most folks eat seafood on Friday.
One of my favorite Friday dishes did not contain seafood, rather it was an Italian egg and vegetable dish. The foodies call this dish Fritata. In my historic oliographic New Orleans neighborhood, wherein resided many families of Italian descent, it was called Frosia.
Our next door neighbor, Mrs. Manale, was a Sicilian woman who had been widowed thirty or forty years before and still wore black every day. She also walked three blocks to our neighborhood bakery at 3:00 p.m. every day to buy two loaves of French bread as soon as it was removed from the oven. Her family which consisted of her only son, Peter; his wife, Lillian and their children: Rose Rita, Peter and Charlie. Mrs Manale was ninety and she cooked everyday for that family. On Fridays she cooked Frosia and she added crawfish.
Over the years I tweaked this recipe by adding bacon. This is my recipe for the dish, which is no longer strictly vegetarian.
Crawfish, Mushroom and Eggplant Frosia (Fritata)
1 eggplant, peeled and cut into 1" squares
4 strips bacon
1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, pressed through a garlic press
1 12 ounce bag Louisiana crawfish (Wal-mart sells these all over the U.S.)
6 eggs, lightly whisked
1/4 cup milk or half and half
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1/4 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese, in all
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Add eggplant to a large pot. Add enough water to cover. Boil until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain.
While eggplant is cooking, slice bacon into 1/2" pieces and fry in a large skillet until crisp. Remove bacon and drain on paper towel, reserving the bacon fat in the skillet.
In a well-seasoned black, cast iron frying pan saute the onion in the bacon fat until the onion is translucent, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and mushrooms and saute lightly. Add the crawfish and cook until heated through. Add the eggplant, bacon, eggs, milk, salt, pepper and half the Parmesan cheese. Stir gently to combine. Cook over medium-low heat lifting with spatula to let the eggs flow underneath, until the edges are set but the middle still is loose, 3 to 4
minutes.
Remove from the heat and sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top. Place in the
oven until the eggs are slightly puffed and the cheese is bubbly and golden brown, about 5 minutes. Remove from oven. Cool for 5 minutes before slicing. Serve immediately at room temperature with a green salad.
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