Quiche versus Frittata

It occured to me as I was falling asleep the other night that maybe my Rice Quiche this week wasn't really a quiche, but might just be a frittata instead. The more I thought about it, the less clear I was on the difference between a quiche and a frittata.


In my mind, a quiche was something of a baked omelet with a crust. A frittata was the kind of dish you could throw all sorts of leftover sauted veggies and meat into, with a little cheese and an egg binder, then baked in an oven. But the dish I made last night, doesn't even really seem to fit into either of those categories and was more like just a plain old rice casserole with an egg and milk binder. KWIM?


So, like any other human of my generation, I googled it. The first link I clicked was at About.com. I don't generally care for the About.com sites because the layouts are are too cluttered and sometimes the content is pretentious. This one is just cluttered. Laura Dolson, the author of the article I read, does a fairly decent job of writing solid definitions for each of several types of egg dishes. By her way of explaining things, I simply made an Egg Casserole last night. And you know what, I'm okay with that... I don't need to be pretentious myself and try to pretend that I made a quiche or frittata (even though these dishes always sound fancier in my mind than casserole).


Then, here at the Passionate Cook, I found a more thorough explanation for the history of the frittata. I don't know why, but I always thought frittatas were of Spanish origin, maybe because I first heard of them while living in Miami? Johanna Wagner, the blog's author, also mentions something called a Spanish Tortilla, which is also an egg dish... I suppose I need to find out what this is too!