Italian Recipe: Frico

Friuli Venezia Giulia typical recipe: Frico

What do you need:

- 1 Medium Onion

- 400 gr. of Montasio Cheese (possibly aged 3 months)

- 150 gr. of Smoked Bacon (diced)

- 150 gr. of Potatos (4 small ones)

- Ground to taste pepper

- Olive Oil

How to proceed:

- Let the diced bacon brown in a pan, and add the thin sliced onion (the thinner, the better).

- Peel the potatos, cut them into slices (or grate coarsely) and add to the pan with the other ingredients

- Add pepper and salt along with a ladle of hot water: cover with a lid and cook at medium heat for at least 30 minutes. 

- Now add the ​cheese cut into thin slices, and mix it alltogether. 

- Put the mixture in a pan and fry the frico from both sides, until it shows a nice golden crust.
- Put the frico on a platter, cut into four slices and serve immediately.

Tips: 

- When you're giving the crustin to the frico, it could happen that an excess of oil is released: before serving it drain the mixture so that is does not look greasy. 
- There are two versions of the frico: a soft and a crisp one. The first is more like an omelette, while the second is very thin and brittle and it is mostly prepared with dairy and corn flour: this preparation gets so malleable before the crusting that is often shaped into "baskets" to hold polenta or cheese.
- The standard recipe doesn't include bacon, that's my personal taste. Other popular addons to the basic recipe are onion rings and eggs, or Speck, a famous italian sliced cold pork meat.

How should it look:

The standard Soft Frico

The Crisp Frico version with the typical "tajut" (a glass of wine)

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