Last week, I cooked Broccoli and red pepper frittatas at one of my volunteering gigs. If you've never made a frittata before, the basic procedure is simple: pre-cook fillings as required (or use leftovers); beat eggs with a splash of milk; pour the egg mix into a pan with the other ingredients; cook on the hob for a few minutes then whack the pan in a medium oven to bake. As I read through my assigned recipe and started to prep the vegetables, my mind kept coming up with ideas for how to jazz up the dish. On volunteering days I'm not supposed to go too crazy, so I filed my thoughts under "experiment later".

Yesterday afternoon, whilst sitting through an episode of Hell's Kitchen in which the contestants were being harangued by Chef Ramsay for burning eggs and serving raw chicken, I decided to break free from the gravitational pull of the couch and take my ideas into the kitchen.

The fridge looked pretty bare. I had the core ingredients: 6 eggs, milk and a ball of mozzarella, which would have to do for the cheese. In the cupboard were pine nuts which I hoped would add texture and interest but other than that I was out of useable groceries. Donning my thickest winter coat, I nipped out to a well-known high-street convenience store and returned with a head of broccoli and some red and orange sweet peppers. One of my flights of fancy had been to use sliced avocado as a topping, but on reflection I wanted the broccoli to be the star of the show. Besides, the store was in disarray, looking like it had been raided by survivalists restocking their bunkers. Avocados were nowhere to be seen.

Back at the flat, I pulled an 8" Pyrex dish out of the cupboard, for which I made a lining from baking parchment, a trick I'd learned at last week's volunteer session to stop the base and sides from sticking. Setting the Pyrex in the oven to pre-heat it, I dialled up 160 degrees C.

About six months ago, a broccoli recipe appeared on my iPad news feed. In fact, it wasn't so much a recipe as a cooking method from Italy called "ripassati", meaning "twice-cooked". In the case of broccoli, the technique involves boiling florets until soft before adding them to olive oil which has been seasoned with chilli flakes and garlic and gently heated. The broccoli cooks down and the resulting creamy mush can be served as a side or used to coat pasta. It's a simple procedure, which yields a concentrated broccoli-flavoured sauce with a chilli kick.

When I make broccoli ripassati I use whole smashed garlic cloves to flavour the oil but remove them before adding the broccoli. I find that minced garlic burns too easily and adds a bitter flavour that ruins the dish. Once the broccoli has cooked down, I finish it off with more olive oil then season to taste.

In preparation for assembling the frittata I cooked up a batch of ripassati, which I left to cool in the pan. I diced and fried off the peppers just enough to soften them, lightly toasted the pine nuts and set them aside. I then panicked that my mozzarella would be bland when paired with the other ingredients so I pinched the ball into nuggets which I dusted with my secret Cajun spice mix to add zing.

Typically, the cooking time for frittatas is short, around 20-25 minutes, depending on thickness, so doing as much prep as possible ahead of time is a good plan. With all my fillings cooked up, I was ready to rock 'n' roll.

I broke the 6 eggs into a bowl and whisked them with a quarter cup of milk, salt and pepper until pale and frothy. I found the egg to milk ratio on Mr Google, who also reckoned that whole milk or another full-fat dairy product was the way to go. Taking the Pyrex from the oven, I set it on top of my smallest hob, inserted the lining and poured in the egg mix. Once the base had started to set I sprinkled in the diced peppers and mozzarella then returned the dish to the oven.

At this point, I realised that I didn't have a piping bag. My plan had been to give the frittata enough time to start to set then to pipe an elegant pattern on the top using the ripassati. The memory of a TV chef demonstrating how to make a bag from folded baking parchment leapt to mind so I launched into some frenzied origami, racing against the setting eggs. The resulting funnel wasn't pretty and threatened to unravel at any moment, but it was all I had. I pulled the semi-firm frittata from the oven, iced it with a broccoli spiral, sprinkled on the pine nuts and returned it to the oven.

After about 15 more minutes the egg mix had risen and the top was springy to the touch. Done! The frittata and lining slid easily out of the Pyrex and onto a chopping board to cool. I returned to the couch and another episode of Hell's Kitchen.


The frittata, which I first sampled cold then nuked in the microwave to reheat, was delicious. The only two tweaks I'd consider making would be to go old school and use a stronger cheese (tradition would suggest Stilton), and to invest in a piping bag to facilitate and refine the decoration. The spiral pattern worked visually, if you like that rustic look, but the thick bead meant that the broccoli taste was too concentrated in places. Piping a thinner design would have worked better. Next time.