FRICO CON PATATE
Frico with potatoes is classic dish native to the north-eastern part of Italy. It is a very simple gratin-type of dish where you bake the ingredients together with the cheese that is meant to be baked until it's crispy. For the rest you can use just potatoes and onions but since there are many frico recipes and varieties available, we made our own frico with potatoes, tomatoes and aubergines. The classic frico recipe uses a special Montasio cheese, but you can substitute it with some other mild cheese.
4 servings:
4 big potatoes, sliced
1 onion, chopped
1/2 aubergine, sliced
150 g/5 oz flavorino tomatoes, halved
2 tbsp butter
salt, pepper
some water
a few crushed juniper berries
400 g/13 oz Montasio cheese or some good mild cheese
Heat up the oven to 170 C/338 F. Grease a baking pan with butter. In a moderately hot pan, sauté the potatoes and onion together with aubergine slices on moderate heat, in butter, for about 5 minutes. Add some water and let heat up if the butter starts to get too brown. Season with salt and pepper and put the veggies in the baking pan together with tomatoes and a few juniper berries and bake until the vegetables are soft. Then throw the sliced cheese over the vegetables and put the frico back in the oven. Let the cheese melt and become slightly crunchy. Serve hot!