So listen up lovely people we're gonna make the most delicious creamed spinach with a cheesy
oat crumble topping, it is the ultimate side dish that I think you're gonna love. Any time
of year it's good but especially when the weather closes in and you want something really gorgeous,
this will get people that are frightened of anything green going crazy. And the great thing
about this recipe is it's heroing a really really humble ingredient - frozen spinach.
I always have frozen spinach in my freezer, 500 grams, and these little beauties are fantastic
they're so convenient to help you get more of the good stuff into your food your cooking,
into stir fries pasta sauces you name it. And of course like this amount of spinach if it was
fresh would need like a pillowcase-worth right? So freezing is brilliant the nutrition is there,
it saves you having to cook down a whole load of spinach and actually I think frozen spinach works
better in this recipe actually than fresh spinach. So a little bit of oil in a pan.
Let's get the garlic starting the story so two cloves of garlic just finely sliced.
That's the beginning so let's get those into the oil like this. Let's get some nice oregano.
And then we've got some nutmeg about half a nutmeg goes in.
The smell already is phenomenal, so that little trilogy: oregano, garlic and nutmeg,
will be best friends with any greens okay? So we'll go in with one onion
and that'll give us a little sweetness which will be lovely. So give them a little toss.
So just fry that for a couple of minutes just to soften it up. What I'm also trying to do is
create textures so I'm going to cream the spinach so it's actually quite smooth and quite spoonable
but then on the top make a beautiful cheesy oat crumble. So crunch, softness, sweetness and
garlic and cheesiness and loveliness, so yeah I'm very excited about this as you can tell.
We'll get some seasoning happening, some salt, sea salt and some pepper for sure, mix that in.
So let's talk about frozen veg, what have I got in my freezer all the time? I have
spinach, peas, sweetcorn, French beans, cauliflower, edamame beans, broad beans...
that's pretty much it right but they're brilliant, they're brilliant, and of course you can just take
a little handful a tiny bit if I'm making like a little minestrone soup or a casserole I can just
grab little bits and just pump up the colour the texture the flavour, and of course the
nutrition. Let that thaw out and cook down for about 10 - 15 minutes until it's quite deep,
green and dark, and then we'll season it up and then I'll show you what to do next.
So look this has had about 12 or so minutes, can you see how lovely and deep that is? Now if
you were using this in a curry, in flatbreads, on pizzas, in quiches, like little crostinis,
through scrambled eggs like through omelettes like this would be amazing look at the texture,
dark deep irony gorgeousness. Right, I'm gonna use the food processor because I want to cream
the spinach, you don't have to but I want to okay? Let's get onto the cheesy crumbly topping. So
first up 50 grams each of porridge oats, any ones you like really really nice, and some lovely plain
flour. 50 grams of lovely cheese. I suggest a nice cheddar: Wensleydale, Red Leicester,
something like that. So about 50 grams goes in. And then 50 grams of butter. So a little buzz.
When it comes together like that, that is when I like it so I'll put that onto the board here
like that. And then I'm going to take this lovely spinach and put it back in here. Now
you can go chunky or you can go really smooth or somewhere in the middle. Smells absolutely lovely.
So to give it that richness we're going to use some lovely crème fraîche, good couple
of heaped tablespoons go in. Now look guys you could use single cream, double cream,
no trouble at all. Just enough to kind of bind it and enrichen it and if you want to put a
little bit of Parmesan or cheddar in there you could, but I've got that in the topping.
So look at that. It's not baby food but it's quite elegant, look at that,
beautiful colour. So I'm very happy with that. So just put the spinach into a nice dish like that.
All of that spinach out.
Look at the colour. Really really nice.
And then the crumbly topping, just break up like that on the top.
So just
press it down like that now the great thing about this incredible side is you can double it,
treble it, quadruple it, you can do it as a get ahead recipe so you can do it the day
before and then all you have to do is bang it in the oven for about 40 minutes at 180
degrees Celsius which is 350 Fahrenheit. So I'm gonna have a little clean down and then
I'll show you what it looks like when it's done, it's going to be amazing.
So it's done, and let's have a look. You can see it's settled down really nicely, it smells
incredible, really really good. But let me show you the cross-section when you get in there.
Come on!
Look at that. It's so blooming rich and gorgeous. Creamed spinach, crunchy golden topping.
So good. So good. Whether you have that with a roast dinner, Christmas dinner, have it with a
nice steak night dinner, you know have it as a lovely lunch with a little salad really really
nice. You can make a bunch up and put them in the freezer knock them out it's a brilliant side,
people love it. So there you go, get the recipe, get shopping, get cooking, and enjoy.