Florentine Grill

If there was one word I had to use to describe this dish it would probably be ‘magical’. You look at the picture, its nice enough, look at the ingredients, yep, got most of them in, should be alright. You make the dish….and suddenly your tastebuds go heh, we weren’t expecting this, whats going on, ooh its rather good. In fact more than good! So much so I was eyeing up D’s portion and using every inch of self control to stop me eating his as well as mine, and blaming a ghost for his missing dinner! With a teeny amount of pre-planning (thawing the spinach), you can have this on the table in under 20 minutes and it makes the perfect light supper.

I did make two minor tweaks to the original recipe by replacing the cream with crème fraiche as I happened to have some in, and using some grated cheddar straight from the freezer (bought on reduced a few weeks back!) instead of the gruyere, and you know what? I wouldn’t change a thing! A final flourish was a light sprinkling of breadcrumbs, which helped to make the dish complete. Oh and I baked it too instead of grilling. So minor adjustments really!

Ingredients with my adaptations:

Serves 1 as a light supper, double up for a main meal or when feeding a man!

1 egg
2 blocks frozen spinach, thawed
1 big slice of good quality cooked ham
1 heaped tbsp crème fraiche
1 tbsp grated cheddar
1 heaped tsp breadcrumbs (I liked Asda’s unless you have your own!)

Using a small pie dish or ideally a gratin dish (I really can’t justify buying any more kitchen stuff but it doesn’t stop me wanting one!) line it with the ham, add the thawed (and well drained!) spinach, leaving a well in the middle, add the egg.

Mix the cheese with the crème fraiche and dot mostly over the spinach outer, sprinkle the breadcrumbs over, and a twist of s&p:

Bake for 15 minutes in a medium hot oven, think was about 180o from memory…or until the eggs are set and it has lightly browned on top:

I served mine with home made little roasties, however a nice green salad would also work well with it.