Torta di Spinachi

This was my second Angela Hartnett recipe, and it turned out just as tasty as the first ( Aubergine Parmigiana).



As always, I adapted it slightly to suit the ingredients in the shops and in my fridge - I used half spinach, half asparagus, and changed the parmesan to a creamy goats cheese I bought from Crudge's Cheese at the weekend farmer's market.

The recipe directs you to make the pastry using olive oil instead of butter. I've tried this a couple of times before; once was a disater and once was passable. This version was actually good! The difference was the flour I think - Angela Hartnett's recipe suggests using '0' type flour, which is the same kind you would use for pasta. Its a much finer flour and worked well for the pastry with olive oil.

The torta was easy to make on a busy day - I made the pastry and mixed the filling together in the morning then they just sat in the fridge all day until I was ready to roll out the pastry and put the dish together in the eveing. We had it warm with salad and new potatoes one day, but it was equally lovely cold for lunch the next day.

Here's the recipe I ended up with after my amendments:

Pastry:
200g pasta-type flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
Pinch of salt
Ice cold water as required

Mix the flour and salt together. Add the olive oil, then gradually add cold water, mixing well between additions until the pastry comes together into a dough. Wrap in cling film and allow to rest in the fridge for at least an hour.

Filling:
250g Spinach (stalks removed & roughly chopped)
200g cooked asparagus, chopped into 1-2cm lengths
60g hard cheese eg parmesan, manchego, or goats cheese - grated or finely chopped
1 egg - beaten
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Salt & pepper

When you are ready to assemble your torta grease a pie tin with a thin coating of olive oil. Roll out the pastry until its larger than the pie dish and lay it in the dish, allowing it to hang over the edges.
Mix together all the filling ingredients, place them on top of the pastry in the pie dish and spread into an even layer.
Fold the excess pastry over the top of the filling to cover it.
Bake in the oven at 200C for about 25 minutes, or until golden brown.

Serve hot or cold. Its a great picnic dish.

Aubergine Parmigiana

I have noticed that recently this blog has been rather sparse on pictures. I'll be attempting to put that right next week, as this weekend we're heading to Bergen (Norway) for the weekend. I'm planning to gorge myself on fish and seafood and take lots of pictures at the fish market on the harbour.

I'm really looking forward to introducing Dan to the best fish and chips in the world, courtesy of the Bergen fish market, as well as the beautiful Norwegian scenery. I'm really excited to be staying more than a day, which gives us the opportunity to take a bit more time over walks, wanders, lunches, day trips. Always before I've had to hotfoot it back to the cruise ship at the end of the day which curtails how much you can explore.

So, hurrah for mini breaks!

In the mean time, this week's recipe was Aubergine Parmigiana, from Angela Hartnett's recipe book which I borrowed from the library last week. Its quite time consuming to put together, just as any layered dish is, but you can prepare it all a day or so ahead and it can happily sit in the fridge overnight - then all that needs doing in the evening after work is to just bung it in the oven.

We had it with spicey baked pork meatballs and a green salad. It was delicious - A really good balance of tomato, basil, mozzarella, parmesan and aubergine. Not as heart-attack inducing as you might expect either as I cut down the oil and cheese quantities a bit. There was still enough of both to make it a good flavour but not so much that the cheese overwhelmed it or the oil made it horribly greasy.



It can be found in Angela Harnett's Cucina, but I suspect there will be versions in a million-and-one other Italian recipe books too.