Filo Fiorentina: Like the Pizza but in a Filo Case

On Friday nights, I've started to go swimming after work. Such a nice way of finishing the week and leaving all the stress behind. Mind you this Friday was hardly stressful: a recce around London for my current job, ending up at the Park Plaza hotel in one of their penthouse suites. I'm not complaining!

Not with this view! Anyway, going back to the swimming, I used this time to come up with my roast recipe. Partly because I was hungry, I started thinking about pizza. And, my favourite pizza is the Fiorentina. I love the baked egg on the top.

I wanted to do an open Filo tart, using the Fiorentina Pizza ingredients. Instead of doing the tomato layer on the bottom, I thought that doing the spinach and goats cheese layer on the bottom would mean that it wouldn't go soggy.

Start by preparing the spinach filling: Saute a clove of garlic in olive oil. Then add your spinach to the pan, salt, pepper and nutmeg to season. Let this cook for 5 minutes with the lid on. It'll be very watery and so you need to (in a sieve) drain off all of the excess water. Make sure you really press the spinach against the sieve so that there is really no excess water coming out. I keep this spinach juice in a Tupperware as a stock in the freezer but if you don't want to keep it then discard it.

Once the spinach has cooled, add your goats cheese and mix it together. This will be the bottom layer of your Filo tart. You also need to toast a good handful of pine nuts to throw over the top at the end. For the tomato sauce layer, I made a rich sauce of my own but you could buy a nice Italian pasta sauce and use that instead. It mustn't be too wet that the only thing.  Leave all of your Filo fillings to one side for later. Now preheat your oven at 190 degrees centigrade.

Then prepare your Filo pastry cases: Melt some butter and brush the inside of 6 ramekin dishes and around the tops with it. On a board, put your first Filo sheet. Brush with melted butter and place on the next sheet. Brush again with melted butter and cut into squares (roughly 15cm x 15cm depending on your ramekin). Then, stuff (gently) each ramekin with a square of prepared Filo. Bake for 10 minutes and then take them out of the oven. Let them cool and take each case out of the ramekins.

You're then ready to put together your Filo case. Compile your tart starting with the bottom layer of your spinach mixture. Followed by the tomato sauce. Make sure you leave enough room for the egg to go on top- I'd say don't fill the case more than two thirds. Bake for ten minutes on 190 degrees. Then crack one egg on each Filo tart and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes until the egg whites are cooked.

Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle on some toasted pine nuts. Top with peppery rocket and serve as you like. I served it with some roast potatoes, a light gravy and a crunchy green salad. It's the kind of dish that could be served as a wintry roast with veg and gravy,  but could also quite easily be a summery lunch dish with a light salad. Either way I think it looks impressive and you already know the flavours work a treat together.

Ingredients (Serves 6):

Jus Roll Filo Pastry, 6 sheets. I only used 4 sheets but you could, if you wanted layer up three sheets instead of 2.
Butter to melt and line Ramekin dishes and to brush over Filo pastry
200g fresh Spinach
70g crumbly goats cheese
Rich, thick tomato sauce, either homemade or bought. I threw in some sun dried tomatoes as well.
Salt, Pepper and Nutmeg to season
6 free range eggs
Handful of pine nuts, toasted
Rocket to go on top
You'll need 6 Ramekins as well.

Stuffed Roast Tomatoes

So, last weekend Billy and I went to the Romford dogs for a classy birthday affair. My only other experience of the dogs has been when I worked on Lewis and I had to go to the Oxford dogs. There, there had only been a very small stand with a bar. I think you'd be lucky if you got a portion of chips. However, the dogs in Romford on a Saturday night is clearly the place to be and I loved it.

I didn't win a thing and ate abysmally: scampi and chips (not to mention the hot dog and pick and mix). So when we got home on the Sunday, rather knackered and a bit worse for wear, I was craving some sort of healthiness. Whenever a little hungover or tired I always crave tomatoes and I stumbled across a recipe by Gennaro Contaldo in Vegetarian Living Magazine (which I don't usually buy but I'm also trying to come up with some lovely vegetarian Christmas recipes).

I made these stuffed tomatoes and served them with greens, roast potatoes and a delicious tomato based gravy which I've never done before but it's great!! See the recipe below:

Ingredients (Serves 6):

Contaldo calls this 'Aubergine "parmigiana" with roasted tomatoes'. I beg to differ and call it Roasted stuffed tomatoes with Aubergine. But hey, who's arguing.. I tweaked his recipe a bit and used fresh oregano and thyme instead of basil. And, the gravy is a Kay Mitchell invention. You must must use ripe tomatoes otherwise it will all be too watery!

For the stuffed tomatoes:
6 beef tomatoes. Ripe!!
Olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 handful fresh oregano
3-4 stalks of fresh thyme
2-3 tablespoons of plain flour
1-2 aubergines sliced into rounds
2 eggs (beaten)
salt and pepper
Mozzarella (2 x large balls), roughly 200g
salt and pepper to season throughout

For the gravy:
half an onion (stolen from the above recipe)
olive oil
glug of white wine
1 x vegetarian stock cube
some of the innards of the tomatoes from above recipe, plus one more tomato if needed
water
tablespoon of plain flour

1. Preheat the oven to 180 to 200 degrees centigrade.

2. Slice the tops of the tomatoes and with a spoon scoop out the innards (save the tops for the lids). Sprinkle the empty tomatoes with salt and place on a plate lined with kitchen towel to let the excess water drain out.

3. Meanwhile, heat up a good glug of olive oil, Gennaro says 4 tablespoons, but who really measures. Sauté your onion for 3-5 minutes. Add your tomato insides and season with the fresh herbs, salt and pepper. After this point, grab another pan for your gravy and put some of your onion tomato mix into your gravy pan (I'd say about a third).

4. With your gravy pan, add a stock cube, white white wine (your choice how much, probably a large glass) and water. Let it bubble away for half an hour or so before blitzing in a hand blender with your flour. You must taste and season with salt and pepper along the way. Add some more fresh herbs perhaps. Once blended let it thicken/ heat on the hob before serving. If there is any extra tomato filling you can also add this later for an even more rich and tomatoey gravy.

5. With the other tomato sauce pan, let it reduce (with a lid on) for 20 minutes so that you have a nice light tomato sauce. Not too watery and fairly thick. Stir occasionally to make sure it's not sticking or burning. This will be one element to your tomato filling.

6. Now in another pan (lots of pans I know but it's a roast! A messy kitchen is a happy kitchen I say), heat some more olive oil to cook the aubergines.

7. While the oil is heating, put the flour in a bowl, eggs in a bowl, and dunk the aubergine slices first in the flour and then the beaten egg.

8. Shallow fry the egg dipped aubergine slices for 3-4 minutes on either side until golden brown. Set aside on kitchen roll and season well on both sides with salt and pepper!

9. Now we're ready to compile the tomatoes: Begin by placing a slice of aubergine into the hollow tomato, then a dollop of tomato mixture, then a slice or two of mozzarella.  Repeat until the tomato is full. Sprinkle with herbs and put it's lid on. Sprinkle on more herbs as you can never get enough herbs.

10. Repeat for all 6 tomatoes. Roast for 25-30 minutes. Any additional tomato sauce filling should be added to the gravy. And, as I said, I served this with roasties. But serve with whatever you fancy! With the