Is it an omelette? Is it a pastry-less quiche? Is it a sort-of frittata?
Uhm, well no. But I’ve no idea what it actually is.
Before writing Instagrammers Anonymous earlier this month I said that I had been hunting through cook books, looking for some slightly unusual things to cook. I found one such thing in Nigella’s Kitchen and was immediately intrigued by what she called the ‘crustless pizza’. It’s something of a cross between all the things mentioned above, but above all it’s not a pizza. It also doesn’t take 20 minutes to cook, as the book claimed.
It’s a combination of egg, milk, flour and cheese; and whilst I’m undoubtedly going to use this post as evidence of my abilities to sell things if I ever decide to become a salesman, I hope you can see why I was curious. And all this from a person who doesn’t even like eggs. I know, I’m weird; but eggs - be they scrambled, fried, poached or boiled - go in the same category as baked beans and Findus lasagne, I just don’t eat them. The lasagne I feel I should add, is because it’s hideously processed and pumped full rubbish, not because they might contain whatever the Romanian version of Black Beauty is - that puts my neigh-ver up nor down. OK, I apologise, that was awful. Let’s move on.
Digressions aside, this is actually a pretty good recipe. On the day in question I was not feeling at my chirpiest or calmest, so I’d been out for a post-work run and really just wanted some sort of comfort food. This was nothing if not quite simple, and the idea of something full of cheese and smothered by chorizo, spinach and yet more cheese sounded like just what I was after.
I’m not entirely sure why mine took twice the amount of time the book claimed it would, but although I didn’t eat until I was thoroughly hacked off with the day and my oven, this was remarkably tasty. And like all good pizzas - even if this isn’t actually much like a pizza - the leftovers tasted pretty damn good cold the next day.
I may not like eggs particularly much, and this might not really be much like its original namesake, but it’s a handy recipe to have around for those evenings when life just requires comfort food.
Nigella’s Crustless Pizza with Chorizo and Spinach
This recipe is adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Kitchen - the basic recipe is the same, but I decided to ‘make it healthy’ by adding spinach. That totally makes it healthy, right? It serves 2.
Ingredients
1 egg
100g plain flour
1 pinch of salt
1 pinch of black pepper
200ml milk
75 chorizo
2 handfuls of spinach leaves
60g Cheddar cheese
40g Parmesan cheese
Directions
Grease your pie dish (20cm approx. diameter) - or line a cake tin with greaseproof paper, in my case - and heat the oven to 200ºC.
Grate all your cheese into a bowl. In a separate bowl mix the egg, salt, pepper, flour and milk into a smooth batter, then add in two-thirds of the cheese. Mix and pour the batter into your lined dish.
Bake for about 35-40 mins, or until the batter looks as though it is almost cooked - it should have the consistency of the egg-part of a quiche - then scatter the spinach on the top, followed by the chorizo and remaining cheese.
Put it back in the oven and bake for another 5-10 mins, or until the cheese has melted and the spinach slightly wilted.
You can put it on to a plate and cut it in to slices if you want, but if you’re not really feeling in the mood for anything apart from eating, lift it out of the dish in the grease-proof paper, put it on a plate and grab your cutlery.
Edinburgh-dwelling, baking and food-obsessed, twenty-something adventure enthusiast. Runs on liberal amounts of coffee, cheese, cake and gin; bribable with same.
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