Call it what you will: this is a perfect food-for-the-weekend dish. You can make it for Friday evening and serve it warm, and then cut at it for lunches/suppers over the rest of the weekend. I had the last slice on Monday lunch, and it was still delicious.
It’s good on its own, or with anything meaty (chorizo sausage went down well), like grilled chicken.
Ingredients for 6 portions
6 smallish new potatoes
2 large red onions, chopped
2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 small fennel bulb, chopped
1 small sweet potato, cut in 1/2 cm slices, about 3 cm diameter
1 fresh red chilli, finely chopped without seeds (or leave a few in for a bit of excitement!)
1 medium courgette sliced 1/2 cm thick
1 good handful chopped mint
1 handful torn basil leaves
100g baby spinach leaves, washed and dried
6 medium eggs
Method
1. Boil the new potatoes with salt and mint sprig till just cooked. Drain.
2. In non-stick frying pan (25cm by 4cm deep), heat a few glugs of olive oil.
3. Add the onion, garlic and fennel, and sweat covered till soft (about 15 mins).
4. Arrange sweet potatoes, courgettes and chilli on top.
5. Slice up the new potatoes, and arrange in the next layer, together with the mint and basil.
6. Add the spinach over this, and pack it down under a piece of tinfoil and then the lid.
7. Beat the eggs and season well.
8. Sprinkle some more olive oil over the just wilted spinach, then distribute the egg mixture evenly. Add a bit more oil.
9. Turn on the grill to a gentle/medium heat.
10. Meanwhile continue with the cooking on top of the stove for about 5-10 minutes, till you see setting signs.
11. Put the whole pan under the grill to set the top. Roughly 3-5 minutes.
Best served warm or cold with plain yoghourt and chutney.
I have a confession: I did post a very similar recipe about 2 years ago, but that was when only 30 readers or so visited this site, so it was a bit wasted. Now that there are many more (thank you all!), I thought it was worth repeating. I made it last Friday to update and improve. It’s one of my favourite things to cook and, like risotto, when you get the hang of it, you can make your own variations.
