I began making frittatas regularly when our family transitioned from the pancakes-or-waffles-every-weekend phase into more "grown-up" breakfasts. As in much of my cooking, I believe I first learned to make a frittata from Julia Child, in one of her books or her television shows.
You can whip up a frittata for any meal: for a weekend breakfast, or with a green salad for lunch, or supper. The frizzled leeks are inspired by a dish served at Union Square Cafe in its early years. It was the first time I saw the word "frizzled."
"Fun word," I thought, and asked Danny Meyer where it came from. "My grandmother. Louise Meyer used to serve mashed potatoes with fried onions on top," he said. "When we opened Union Square Cafe in 1985, we substituted rutabaga for the potatoes, and leeks for the onions. That became our 'Mashed Turnips with Frizzled Leeks.' To avoid using the word 'fried,' I landed upon 'frizzled.' After that, frizzled leeks found their way onto everything from mashed potatoes to scallops, an omelet, red snapper, and just about everything except for ice cream."
If you don't have leeks, then thinly sliced onions, pan-roasted asparagus tips, crisped bacon all work fine. Concerning culinary substitution, I think of the Russian proverb that my grandpa Jan would trot out about many things in life: "If no fish, then lobster will do." Apparently, lobster prices under the czar were less steep than they are in present-day America, but I took his point.
As I noted earlier, Parmesan cheese has a lot of umami, which contributes to the high FPC of this recipe, especially when I top the finished frittata with some cherry tomatoes charred at high heat and pepped up with crushed red-pepper flakes.
