Orzo Frittata

Well, it's been awhile since I've posted. The reason? Creme fraiche. That's right. Creme fraiche. What is it you ask? Well, a very important ingredient in most of the recipes I have been finding that I wanted to use. Has it ever happened to you where you learn of something new and then you see it everywhere? Let's call it the awareness phenomenon. Creme fraiche was my awareness phenomenon. It seemed that all the foodnetwork stars were using creme fraiche and told me I could find it in my local grocery store. They lied. Pick n' Save does not carry creme fraiche (at least the ones I was going to). I finally got so frustrated that Mike called around and found out that customers at Trader Joe's were asking for creme fraiche a lot recently. Awareness phenomenon continues. Once when we called they said it would be in at the beginning of the week. The second time we called and they said that it was a seasonal item. I have to assume that they were not apart of the awareness phenomenon or got tired of people asking for it because it is not a seasonal item. We found it at an upscale specialty store - finally. Giada's Orzo Frittata was coming to my kitchen.

I wanted to taste the creme fraiche to see what spectacular taste it would provide my creation. Guess what. It tasted like sour cream. Yup. Very expensive sour cream. I must not have a very refined palatte, because other than a slight difference in taste and a slightly creamier texture, I could not tell the difference between creme fraiche and sour cream and definitely didn't tell a difference in the dish.


Let's get on to business. Here's the recipe.

Ingredients

3/4 cup Orzo
6 Eggs
1/3 cup Whole Milk Ricotta
1/4 cup Creme Fraiche
2 cooked Chicken Breasts, diced
4 Scallions, chopped
1/4 cup Flat Leaf Itallian Parsley
1/3 cup Red Bell Pepper, diced
1 Roma Tomato, diced
salt
pepper
splash of basalmic vinegar
splash of white wine vinegar

Cook orzo in salted water.

Combine eggs, ricotta, creme fraiche. Add in the rest of the ingredients including cooked orzo. Put in a 1 quart dish. Bake in a preheated oven at 375F for 25 minutes. Turn on broiler and leave in for 5 more mintues. Serve.

My thoughts...

This was a nice dish. Something light and easy. If I were to do it again, I would either use left over chicken with some sort of marinade or seasoning or ham. Ham would actually be great. I also wouldn't put in as much parsley and scallions. I decided to add the vinegars to my recipe, and it was a nice touch. I really put all the dry ingredients together before putting it in the egg mixture so that I could taste it to make sure it had enough flavor.