During a week in Catalonia 1999 during my spell as a vegetarian, I enjoyed a selection of the delicious local omelettes, or “truita”. With the exception of the eggs and milk, you can substitute any of the other ingredients with pretty much whatever you like. Truita is also delicious eaten cold the day after preparation.
Serves 2 as a main course, or cut into cubes and serve cold as a tapas
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 pint milk
- 1 Spanish onion (of course!)
- Garlic
- Red chilli
- A tin of cannelini beans, drained and rinsed
- Mushrooms
- Spinach
- Frozen peas
In a large frying pan, fry some onions in olive oil. Add garlic and chillies to taste. Add the beans (some recipes substitute this for potato) and, after cooking a little longer, add some mushrooms and fresh spinach. You could, if you like, add a handful of frozen peas.
Meanwhile, beat in a bowl four large eggs and a splash of milk. Add generous amounts of salt and pepper, and add the cooked vegetables straight to the bowl (not the other way round!) Stir well to prevent the eggs from congealing.
Now add more oil to the frying pan, and return the mixture to the heat. Start preheating a grill.
Cook the omelette slowly, until the egg starts to solidify. The omelette may still be a little runny inside, but this won’t be a problem since instead of turning it over as you would a French omelette, you now need to put your frying pan under the grill, taking care of course not to expose any plastic handles to any heat!
In the above photograph, I have added a topping of sliced goat’s cheese.
Continue until the entire omelette is solid, then turn out onto a rack. Eat hot or cold.
This omelette is traditionally served with a thick sauce – this could be a tomato and pepper sauce like that used in ‘patatas bravas’, or perhaps some aioli (garlic mayonnaise). I also recommend serving it with “pa amb tomaquet” (fresh bread, rubbed with tomatoes and olive oil and seasoned with lots of salt and pepper); Arbequina olives if you can get them, and fresh almonds prepared the Catalan way (fried in olive oil and salted.)