Tuesday, November 01, 2005

A Greek picnic with the F-word



Johanna wrote about what was going on at the back stage of the newest Gordon Ramsay show, F-word. Intrigued by Johanna’s entry, I sat myself in front of Channel 4 last Thursday night, accompanied by my friends Maarika and Age. As I’m on the mission of internationalising the palates of my Estonian friends (the Chinese meal, Indian feast etc), then this time I prepared a simple and easy Greek meze platter, served on a tablecloth on the living room floor – almost like a real picnic:)

On the meze platter were yet another load of Greek meatballs, this time with feta cheese and black olives, boiled Charlotte potatoes with herbs, olive oil and lemon, feta-spinach mini omelettes and mini plum tomatoes.

I was especially pleased with the mini omelettes. The recipe is from the Finnish foodmag Ruokamaailma (4/2004) and is very simple. Even simpler than the tomato, rocket, feta frittata I made a forthnight ago. Here’s a slightly modified version of mine:

Feta and spinach mini omelettes
(Spinati-fetaomletid)

5 large eggs
0.75 dl milk
0.5 tsp salt
a pinch or two of freshly grated nutmeg
1 dl (defrosted) chopped spinach
100 grams of chopped feta cheese

Break the eggs in a bowl with a fork or mini whisk, add milk, seasonings and spinach. Ladle the runny mixture into buttered muffin tins (I used a regular 12-hole muffin tray). Sprinkle feta cheese on top.



Bake at 200˚C for 20 minutes, until egg mixture has set. I was a bit suspicious, if they'd set easily, as the mixture was very runny (see above). But they turned out just beautiful!



Mini omelettes raise in the oven nicely, but will collapse a little when taken out of the oven.



Serve with a green salad. Or as part of a Greek meze. A definite keeper. If you like the classic Greek combination of feta and spinach, you’ll love this.

As for the programme, I didn’t enjoy that. I understand that Gordon is a talented chef and that many of you like his (dessert) recipes. And whereas I did really enjoy his programme Kitchen Nightmares, other programmes have left me cold. Talented or not, I’m too distracted by the arrogance and rudeness that dominate his programmes and end up overlooking his recipes and impressive cooking skills.. So no, I will not be having TV dinners in front of telly on Thursday nights...

UPDATE: here is another picture of these tiny omelets (click to enlarge)

10 comments:

Nefritite said...

Hi Pille,
those mini omelettes look really delicious! I have always just made the usual feta-spinach pie, but I gotta try this recipe, it looks very simple!

Anita

Anonymous said...

Yum, yum, yum! You know I like anything with feta cheese in it.

As for Gordon R, Johanna's description of the show taping was fun to read. The first time I saw him, I was very turned off by his persona. However, I saw him in another show and his behavior was much nicer/kinder. I realized that he has the ability to be a nice person and that the obnoxious character he exhibits is more for show. Too bad he has to act that way.

chili&vanilia said...

Pille,
I absolutely adore anything with feta and spinach, your mini omelettes look sooo good, I'm starving...
Cheers,Zsofi

Monkey Gland said...

Yeah, you have to ask yourself what happened to the decent working glass ex-footballer that he was before he started tarting about in an apron ;-)

Joycelyn said...

hi pille, every looks splendid! those fabulous mini omelettes, in particular...your friends are so lucky...

Pille said...

Anita - the mini omelettes were delicious, and not too eggy at all - I guess spinach and feta are quite strong flavoured on their own. I'm definitely gonna make these again!

Paz - well, if you like anything with feta cheese in it, you'll like these. I also make a mean feta spinach pie, will write about it in a few weeks. So you must come back soon:)

Zsofi - feta & spinach seems to be a winning combination, eh:)

J - thank you for your kind words. My friends would be even luckier, if I could make some equisite and delicate pastries that so often feature on your blog...

Monkey Gland - well, I guess we never know. I saw his wife telling in the telly few weeks ago that the 'real' Gordon is nothing like the screen personality. Maybe it's true. And as I said, I'm not judging his cooking skills, just that I'm not too keen on that rude macho king in the kitchen theme..

Anonymous said...

Hi There Pille!! This recipe looks absolutely wonderful! I'm American, though, and when I attempted to do the conversions, they just don't look proportionate to me. For spinach I came up with about 1/2 cup....your pics look to be much more than that. And milk, about 2 1/2 ounces?? If you could help me out with this, it would be great! I'm loving this recipe, but I want to 'successfully' make it!! Thanks! :)

Pille said...

Hi Michelle,
yes, the recipe prescribes just under half a cup of spinach (that's already twice as much as the original Finnish recipe required), and the milk is 2.5 oz indeed. Also, make sure to grease the cups thoroughly first, or use paper tin liners, as they can stick to the pan.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Pille! We just finished these, they are just as wonderful as they sound!!! Thanks for a great recipe, I'll probably be making these for my family's Christmas Brunch! YUM!!! :)

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