Omelette paysanne

It's a sign of the disfavour into which French food has fallen that we'd rather talk about frittatas than omelettes these days. Even though they're virtually the same. We also buy pancetta cubetti rather than bacon bits - at about 3 times the price. There's a lot in a name.

Anyway, this simple meal was prompted by good old bacon - a small bag of offcuts that I spotted in a local butcher yesterday for just 35p. I also had a leftover cooked potato and some parsley to use up, some eggs and an onion (which one should never be without).

I went through the bacon offcuts and trimmed off the excess fat then tipped them into a frying pan in which I'd heated 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and fried them for a couple of minutes. (If the bacon had been watery I'd have discarded the liquid at this point and put fresh oil in).

I then added a large chopped onion (probably about 200g) and fried the mixture for another 7-8 minutes or so until the onion started to brown. I added the sliced potato and carried on frying for another couple of minutes then tipped in 5 large eggs, beaten with a handful of chopped parsley and seasoned with salt and pepper.

I left the pan on a low heat, pulling up the edges of the omelette as they cooked to let the liquid egg run down to the base of the pan. Then I heated the grill and put the pan under the grill to brown the top. (That took about 4 minutes.)

It should have been enough for three, even four with a salad and some bread but we managed to demolish it between the two of us (thus breaking my own rule that one should always set aside leftovers and not leave them lying invitingly on the table)

Even so, it was a good cheap lunch.