Everyday Epicurean

Hunting around for something to cook this evening after having slashed weeds with the brushcutter outside (and the requisite shower and short rest afterwards), I flicked through my copy of The Silver Spoon for Spinach related recipes (since I’d bought a bunch of Silverbeat today while shopping – so for the purposes of this recipe, spinach will refer to silverbeat).

Nothing really jumped out at me, but I liked the idea of spinach as a side dish, possibly with anchovies and chilli. So a slight jag to the left and I’d found the Roman Spring Lamb recipe. I glanced at it quickly at set about making something fairly similar.

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h2. Ingredients.

h3. For the Roman style Lamb…

* 5 bbq lamb chops
* about 7 potatoes (I forgot to count them, but it was technically too many, although they all got eaten anyway)
* about 1 teaspoon of dried rosemary (or better yet, use 4 fresh sprays of rosemary)
* some plain flour (just enough to coat each lamb chop)
* some red wine (although white would also work)
* a splash of balsamic vinegar (use white wine vinegar if using white wine)
* some olive oil
* salt and pepper

h3. For the Spinach with Anchovies and Chilli….

* a large bunch of spinach (yes, I know, I should have weighed it or something)
* 3 anchovy fillets
* about 100g of butter
* 1 rasher of bacon, finely diced, rind removed
* 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped then crushed with half a teaspoon of salt
* 2 bird’s eye chillies, seeded and scraped

h2. Method.

Place some oil in the bottom of a large baking dish (or roasting pan). Slice your potatoes thinly (about 1 to 2 mm thick) and lay out on the bottom of the roasting pan. Sprinkle with salt, rosemary (if you’re using dried) and cracked black pepper.

Now coat the lamb chops with flour, and fry in a little oil over high heat to sear. Splash in some cooking wine, turn the chops over when the wine has reduced to half it’s volume, and remove from the pan when the wine has just about reduced to nothing.

Place the chops on the potato slices.

Deglaze the frypan with a little more wine, some vinegar and a bit of water. Reduce to a third of it’s volume and pour over the chops. Sprinkle a little salt on the chops.

Add 150ml (in practice, you may want about half of that) of boiling water to the roasting pan. Cover the pan firmly with aluminium foil and bake at 190C for 30 minutes.

While that’s doing it’s thing, prepare the spinach (oh how I love spinach, it goes so well with meat).

Wash and coarsely chop the spinach leaves. Steam in a double boiler steamer until wilted then drain thoroughly.

Chop the drained spinach finely.

In the same frypan, melt the butter and crush the anchovy fillets in it. Add the garlic paste and chilli. Stir through the bacon. Remove from the heat.

About 5 minutes or so before you’re ready to serve, stir the chopped spinach through the bacon and warm through.

When the chops are done, serve them out with the spinach. If there is still liquid in the roasting pan, transfer the potatoes and liquid to the fry pan and reduce the liquid to a sauce consistency. Serve along side the meat and spinach.

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