Ostrich Egg Frittata

Ostrich Egg Frittata

We got this humongous egg home one day, half expecting a baby dinosaur to come out of it the longer we refused to crack it open. When we finally did, we were rewarded with a bounty of wonderfully tasty and healthy (lower in cholesterol) version of the regular egg!
Camera used to take the pics below: Non-SLR. Olympus Digital, C-720 Ultra Zoom.
That's what it looked like when we got it

Hammer, chisel? It actually came with instructions!!


Yes, ALL that from one ostrich egg!

This is what we did with it :)


I have been meaning to write about my Ostrich egg escapades for a while now. Just as I am about to do that, I notice that Jai and Bee's 1st photography event theme is EGGS!! Serendipity anyone?

I am sending this eggstatic post Jai & Bee's way. For those who have not tried ostrich egg before, it pretty much tastes like regular egg, only 1 Ostrich egg tastes like 21 of the regular ones ;). Yup, thats right 1 ostrich egg yields yolk and egg-white equivalent to 21 regular eggs :)

Now how did we come about an ostrich egg you may ask. Well, R and I were on a tour of the California missions starting from San Francisco and going all the way down to Santa Barbara when we spotted an ostrich farm on the way! What again? Yes, an ostrich farm where they raise ostriches and allow people to go feed them. The brave ones who decided to go feed the large birds were given a LONG list of Dos and Donts (well Donts mostly :)).

R was just fascinated by the ostrich egg shell and was about to buy just the shell, when the person raising the ostrich convinced him to buy the actual egg with its goodness all intact instead. I kept nodding very vigorously, but alas R was already like a lil kid asking her all kinds of questions as to how many eggs does an ostrich lay in a week, do they protect them like mammals do etc etc. At that time I knew this was a lost cause..oh well...next thing I knew we had this HUGE (understatement!) egg sitting in our backpack where we were instructed to err keep it warm and covered???

Now the moment I heard the words keep it warm and covered, I had scary visions of a lil ostrich staring at us from the back of our car by the time we got home!
Well all ended well with us discovering the joys of ostrich egg, and for some reason we came away wondering if everyone raised ostriches instead of chicken, would that reduce the need to buy eggs as often as we do??? Hmm....now thats a thought, silly one albeit ;)

Kanchana of Married to a Desi was nice enough to highlight eggs as this month's WBB event event originally conceptualized by our favorite neighborhood doc Nandita. This way we get to click our eggs and eat them too ;). Am sending this ostrichy frittata her way!

Ostrich Frittata
Ingredients
1. 4 cups of ostrich egg well beaten. Alternatively you can use 4 regular eggs.
2. 1 cup peeled, cleaned shrimp
3. 1 cup broccoli cut into florets
4. 1 cup mushrooms, cleaned and chopped thinly
5. 1 tsp Black pepper
6. 2 tsp cajun spice (or paprika)
7. 1 tsp olive oil
8. Salt to taste
Method
1. Pre-heat the oven at 350 degrees
2. In a deep vessel, add all the ingredients above and mix well
3. Spray a thick bottom skillet with oil
4. Add the mixture to the skillet and let cook in the oven at 375 degrees for 30 minutes of till the egg turns brown
5. Once cooked, cut into wedges and serve.
I served this with some garlic bread. Made for a very satisfying meal!
Enjoy :)