Frittata di Spaghetti (Neapolitan Spaghetti Omelet)

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Frittata di Spaghetti (Neapolitan Spaghetti Omelet)

I’ve heard Italians from other regions make jokes about how Neapolitans love their frittatas of pasta — “those poor people whose cuisine is so limited and who eat so much pasta they even put it in their omelets.” It’s a point not well taken in Naples, where the pasta frittata is instead considered a stroke of Neapolitan genius: “We clever people who can take just a few eggs, some bits of cheese and leftover spaghetti and make such a glorious dish.” Once you have made a spaghetti frittata, you will definitely side with the Neapolitans and make the dish a part of your life, too.

Frittata di Spaghetti  Print This Post Print This Post

Serves 4 as a main dish, about 8 as an antipasto

Ingredients:

  • 6-8 ounces linguine, spaghetti or other pasta, cooked and sauced or not sauced, leftover or freshly cooked, at room temperature
  • 4 eggs, lightly beaten
  • Freshly ground black pepper to taste
  • ¼ cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or pecorino or a combination of both (or more to taste)
  • 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
  • Optional: 5 ounces scamorza or several-days-old mozzarella, sliced

Instructions:

  1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the pasta, the beaten eggs, the black pepper and the grated cheese. Mix well.
  2. In a 9- to 10-inch nonstick skillet, heat the oil over medium heat and swirl it around to make it coat the bottom of the pan.
  3. Add half the pasta and spread it evenly in the pan. Place the sliced cheese on top (if using), but don’t put any cheese within 1/2-inch of the edge. Add the remaining pasta and spread it to make sure it covers the bottom pasta layer and the sliced cheese. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes to 8 minutes, or until the bottom browns.
  4. Place a plate on top of the pan and reverse the frittata so it falls onto the plate. Slip the frittata back into the skillet and cook the other side for another 5 to 8 minutes, until it browns.
  5. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature.

Variations:

Instead of scamorza or mozzarella, you can use any good melting cheese, such as Gouda, Fontina, Gruyère, or Swiss (Emmenthaler).

In addition to, or instead of, the melting cheese, sprinkle a few extra tablespoons of grated cheese between the layers of pasta.

Add diced salami or diced, thinly sliced ham with the cheese.

– From Naples At Table: Cooking In Campania; More Than 250 Recipes From Avellino, Benevento, Caserta, Salerno, The Amalfi Coast, Capri And Ischia. New York: HarperCollins, 1998. 436p. –

Visit The Three Tomatoes’s profile on Pinterest.

About Arthur: The New York Times Magazine called Arthur Schwartz “a walking Google of food and restaurant knowledge.” As the restaurant critic and executive food editor of the New York Daily News, which he was for 18 years, he was called The Schwartz Who Ate New York. Nowadays, he is best known as The Food Maven, the name of his website. Whatever the sobriquet, he is acknowledged as one of the country’s foremost experts on food, cooking, culinary history, restaurants, and restaurant history.

Visit Arthur At: www.foodmaven.com

Arthur Schwartz

About Arthur: The New York Times Magazine called Arthur Schwartz “a walking Google of food and restaurant knowledge.” As the restaurant critic and executive food editor of the New York Daily News, which he was for 18 years, he was called The Schwartz Who Ate New York. Nowadays, he is best known as The Food Maven, the name of his website. Whatever the sobriquet, he is acknowledged as one of the country’s foremost experts on food, cooking, culinary history, restaurants, and restaurant history. Visit Arthur At: www.foodmaven.com

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.