I don’t remember how I came up with this dish, but it was probably inspired by having a bunch of leftovers combined with my love of eggs. Basically, “omelet”, as I call it, is vegetables and meat sauteed in a pan, topped with uncooked scrambled eggs and cheese, and steamed until the eggs are cooked through. It doesn’t sound exotic or fancy, and isn’t the prettiest thing around, but it is tasty, nourishing, and easy to prepare. It’s an excellent dish to cook when you have little time or are just plain tired and want something to eat fairly fast. It’s also a great canvas for improvisation.
I mentioned leftovers above – it’s a great dish for leftovers – greens work especially well, as do onions, potatoes, carrots, summer squash, and tomatoes. You can mix in some pesto with the eggs, add diced or ground meat, sausage, or cured meats. You can also make it very simple with just onions, potato, egg, and cheese. You can even add a sauce you like at the end. This dish is incredibly flexible, which is one of the things I like about it.
Last night, I used half a white onion, leftover garlic lemon greens, chopped cooked chicken, pesto ricotta, eggs, and grated Locatelli (a salty hard cheese). In this case, everything but the eggs and cheese were leftovers from last week. It was a very tasty combination.
So, what I did was:
- Diced up the onions and sautéed them in olive oil (about 1 T) until they became translucent.
- Added the chicken and cooked that a little bit.
- Then came the greens, and I cooked everything together until it was heated through.
- I also made sure that the pan was completely covered with this mixture, so that eggs would not leak through to the pan surface; it’s best if they sit atop the vegetables.
- Scrambled the eggs and poured them on top (I used 5 eggs this time, which was perfect)
- I then put small dollops of pesto ricotta across the top of the mixture, and sprinkled on the grated cheese.
- I put a lid on it, turned the heat down to low and let it steam. I’d check on it from time to time to make sure the eggs were cooked through. It took about 10-15 minutes for the eggs to cook and the dish to come together.
- I only salted the onions a little bit, as the leftovers had all be seasoned when I cooked them originally, so extra salt was not needed.
If I were skipping the pesto ricotta, I’d probably use a sharp cheddar in place of the Locatelli and eat it with hot sauce!
So, in general, the order of ingredients would go as follows:
- aromatics (e.g. onion, garlic, bacon)
- ground/chopped meat (if using)
- hard veggies (e.g. carrots, potatoes)
- soft veggies (e.g. greens, summer squash, tomatoes, sauce)
- herbs
- eggs (solo, or combined with sauce like pesto, tomato, or salsa)
- cheese
- The order of things can even be re-arranged if it works better for you.
Like I said, there is room for improvisation and the dish is extremely customizable.
It’s been a quick and delicious dinner staple in my household and has provided us with delicious and nutritious meals numerous times. I hope you find it a useful and enjoyable dish as well.
This post is participating in Real Food Wednesday, hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
