PASTIS DE TRUITES - OMELETTE CAKE

Our dinner last night was 'Pastis de truites' - Omelette cake. It is another very delicious Catalan recipe that we used to eat on our Sunday lunches. I have adapted it a bit to make it healthier, and have cooked the vegetables in an air-fryer, so they are not as oily. Also, the traditional recipe from a cookbook that has been used in my family for two generations and that I now have, mixes the bechamel sauce with cooked monkfish and scampi. It's very hard to get these two ingredients where we live, so I used cooked prawns instead and put them whole in between the omelettes. It was really delicious, and quite simple and easy to make. Certainly a weekend dish, though, because it takes a while to prepare.

INGREDIENTS

4 potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced (about 50mm thick)

2 onions, thinly sliced

2 zucchini, thinly sliced

1/2 punnet cherry tomatoes or similar

16 cooked prawns, peeled

8 eggs

salt

olive oil

Bechamel sauce

40g butter

40g plain flour

500ml milk

1/2 tsp salt

a pinch of black pepper

a pinch of nutmeg

50g grated parmesan or grana padano cheese

METHOD:

Prepare all vegetables. Put the potatoes on a bowl and add a little splash of oil. Mix well and put in a preheated 180C air-fryer. Cook for about 10 minutes, and then shake the potatoes and cook a further 5 minutes or until done. Set apart.

Meanwhile, do the same with the onion. Cook in the air-fryer for only about 5-8 minutes. I almost burnt it! Put it in a bowl with the potatoes.

Do the same with the zucchini and tomatoes.

Whisk 4 eggs in a small bowl. Add some salt to taste and add the potatoes and the onions. Heat a small non-stick frying pan over the stove. Add a little bit of oil. When quite hot, add the potato and egg mixture to the pan. Cook one side of the omelette, taking care that it doesn't burn - you might have to lower the heat.

Flip the omelette using a flat lid or a large plate, and put it back on the pan for another couple of minutes, or until nicely browned.

Put the omelette in a round baking dish. I used a ceramic quiche dish.

Add half of the peeled prawns on top.

Continue to make the rest of the omelettes. First, the tomato one, put it on top of the prawns, add the other half of the prawns on top, and finish with the zucchini omelette.

If you want, you can make it ahead up to this point. (If you do that, you will need to warm the omelettes in the oven for about 10 - 15 minutes before pouring the bechamel sauce.)

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Make the bechamel sauce. I made it in the Thermomix, but you can do it over the stove easily.

If using a Thermomix, place the butter in the bowl and melt 3 min/100°C/vel 1.

Add the flour and cook for 3 min/100°C/vel 1.

Add the milk, salt, pepper and nutmeg powder and cook for 6 min/90°C/vel 4.

If doing it by hand, please click here to see a step by step recipe.

Pour the sauce over the omelettes and sprinkle with the grated cheese.

Cook in the oven for about 10 minutes, and then change it to the gratin mode and cook for another 5 minutes or until it is nicely browned on top.

Remove from the oven, and serve immediately.

Serves 4-6

This recipe comes from this cookbook. My grandmother used it first, then my mother and now I have it with me. I was given a copy when I came to Australia, but it got burnt (a long story!!). This copy is a treasure for me, and you can see by the pages that it has been widely used.

Variation

You can make the omelettes using different ingredients from whatever you have available in the fridge. Some suggestions: artichoke, fried eggplant, tinned tuna, ham, prosciutto, fried tinned beans with bacon, cheese, etc.

In summer, it is served at room temperature with all i oli or mayonnaise instead of the bechamel sauce.

Art de Ben Menjar

Art de Ben Menjar is a cookbook, published anonymously the 1st time in 1923, by the publishing company The Renaixensa, and at successive editions with author Marta Salvià, pseudonym for Adrianna's Aldavert and Sara Aldavert, daughters of Pere Aldavert and Martorell and of Josefa Sabater and Nubiola, and re edited in 1925, 1927, 1930 (The Renaixença), 1940 (Durán and Alsina), 1968 (Aedos). Pere Aldavert (1850 - 1932) was a journalist and Catalan politician. It was one of the greatest promoters of the Catalanist movement, of which he was a key figure.

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