A delicious bake for brunch, lunch or supper from Diana Henry. You can add torn mozzarella too if you like, or make it more spicy.
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil plus extra for greasing
- 225 g sourdough or another coarse bread, torn into 4cm pieces (weight with crusts removed)
- 3 large leeks
- 15 g butter
- 1 kg spinach any coarse stalks removed
- 1 garlic clove finely sliced
- leaves from a few thyme sprigs
- 1 red chilli deseeded and finely sliced
- 300 g smoked or unsmoked ham chopped
- 8 medium eggs
- 500 ml double cream
- 30 g parmesan grated
- extra virgin olive oil for drizzling
Servings:
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 210C/200C fan/gas mark 6½. Oil a baking dish or roasting tin roughly 32 x 24cm.
- Scatter the bread on the base of the tin and drizzle with the olive oil. Turn the mixture over in your hands, season and bake for 17-20 minutes. The bread should be golden but not too crispy.
- Turn the heat down to 190C/180C fan/gas mark 5.Remove the outer layer from the leeks and chop off the green tops. Cut each leek into 2cm slices, leaving the base behind. Wash in a colander.
- Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the leeks, salt and pepper, and cook over a medium heat, stirring, for a couple of minutes. Add a couple of tablespoons of water to the pan, cover it, turn the heat down and sweat the leeks for 15 minutes. Keep checking there’s enough moisture in the pan.
- Wash the spinach then put it in a saucepan with two tablespoons of water. It’s a lot of spinach so you can do two thirds and then add the final third once it starts shrinking.
- Cover and set over a medium heat, shaking the pan and turning the leaves over as they wilt. When it’s soft, drain the spinach and leave it to cool. Squeeze handfuls to get rid of the moisture – if it’s wet it will make the dish watery. Roughly chop.
- Add the spinach to the leeks along with the garlic, thyme and chilli. Cook on a high heat, turning the vegetables over, until the moisture has evaporated and the mixture is buttery but not wet. Scrape this into a bowl along with the ham and let it cool.
- Add two of the eggs to the cream and beat it lightly. Season. Toss the Parmesan into the vegetables and add the cream mixture. Pour over the bread. Make six very slight shallows on the surface and crack an egg into each of them. Drizzle on some extra-virgin olive oil.
- Bake for 30 minutes, or until the eggs on the surface are just set. Leave to sit for 10 minutes, covered with foil, as the eggs will cook more in the residual heat, then serve.
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