Frico (Crisp Pan-Fried Montasio)

Name: Frico (Crisp Pan-Fried Montasio)
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 200 g aged Montasio cheese; 1 tsp plain flour; black pepper

Friuli's cheese crisp: aged Montasio grated into a dry pan with no oil and left until the cheese's water has bubbled away and its fat has run out and fried the protein left behind. Elsewhere a cheese that weeps fat, clumps and sets brown has failed; frico takes all three to the end, on purpose, and gets a lacy golden crisp.

Ingredients

4servings

aged Montasio cheese · aged 60 days or more; or Parmigiano Reggiano, or half and half200 g
plain flour · optional; makes the crisps a little sturdier1 tsp
black pepper · optional

Steps

Grate the cheese on the coarse side of a grater. If using flour, toss it through now.
⏲ 5 min
Put a non-stick pan over medium heat with no oil. Spread 2 tablespoons of cheese in a thin, even round about 10cm across. A few gaps are fine.
⏲ 30 sec
Leave it for 3-4 minutes. The cheese melts and bubbles, fat seeps out to the edges and it starts to sizzle in that fat. It is ready when the bubbling dies down and the edges go golden.
⏲ 3 min 30 sec
Slide a spatula under it and lift it in one go. You can flip it and give the other side 30 seconds.
⏲ 30 sec
Cool on a rack or paper for 1 minute. Hot, it bends; it sets crisp as it cools. To shape it, drape it over a rolling pin or a cup while it is hot.
⏲ 1 min
Without wiping the pan, cook the rest the same way. Eat them once cooled, or lay them on a soup.
⏲ 1 min

Tips & Variations

Variations

Frico con patate (soft frico): in Friuli "frico" often means this — onion and potato cooked in butter, cheese added and fried into a thick disc, crisp outside and molten inside, eaten with polenta as a meal. The thin crisp on this page is frico croccante.
Baskets: drape a hot one over an upturned cup and it cools into a bowl for salad or risotto.
Other cheeses: Parmigiano alone is saltier and shatters thinner. Some younger Montasio in the mix makes it chewier and less crisp.
In the oven: spread several on baking paper and bake at 200°C for 6-8 minutes. Easier for a big batch.

Tips

The failure is the method. Dairy and heat sorts melting cheeses and names their faults: long-aged hard cheese melts in but "releases its fat readily", and mid-aged cheese like cheddar "goes oily and clumpy if the heat is too high". Frico wants both. The fat has to separate and the cheese has to clump.
The colour is not a fault either. Francesinha uses cheese as a wall against its sauce, and says: "Do not let it brown and crisp — set cheese is a lid, not a wall." In frico that set sheet is the food. Leaving it until it sets golden is the recipe.
No oil in the pan. The cheese supplies the frying fat. Deep frying opens on "Frying trades water for oil". In frico that trade happens inside one ingredient. The cheese's water bubbles away, and its fat stays in the pan and fries the protein that is left. Add oil and you get cheese soaked in oil, not fried.
The bubbling dying down is the signal. The bubbles are water leaving, and while water is there the cheese cannot crisp. When the bubbling slows and the sizzle thins out, the water is nearly gone. Listen for that before you look at the colour.
Which cheese is everything. Wet fresh mozzarella only stretches and never loses its water, so it never becomes a crisp. A cheese that does not melt at all — the kind saganaki uses — never spreads, so no lace forms. You want an aged, dry cheese that melts, spreads and gives up its fat.
It crisps as it cools. Straight out of the pan a frico bends; the melted fat and protein are still soft. It sets in a minute, so shape it within that minute.