Towards the end of the second Fridge, Freezer, Pantry week I used up some Bolognese sauce which had been in the freezer. The first meal I made from this little batch of Bolognese was a traditional Spag Bol. Lovely, tasty, delicious spag bol However, there was still a little sauce and pasta left over so I decided to cook up a dish that had been on my radar for a while now – a Spaghetti Bolognese Omelette!
This recipe comes from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s Love Your Leftovers. This is a very handy book if you are keen to reduce your food waste.
So, as I was making this, delusions of grandeur were flitting through my head. What if the Spaghetti Bolognese Omelette…or the Spag-Om / Bol was to become the viral fusion food of 2020? Move over Dominque Ansell and take your cronuts with you! This is the year in which coronavirus and the Spag-Om™ take over the world. Before you start to mock me, remember that I have been in lockdown pretty much since March. That’s FOUR months. As of the coming Wednesday, we cannot even step out of our houses without wearing masks. No wonder I’m becoming delusional
So is the world ready for the launch of the Spag-Om™?
In a word, no.
This was not very nice. I feel the same way about the Spag-Om™ as I do about chocolate cheesecake. Each of the components is lovely, delicious yummy.
On their own.
But mix them together and you open a minor circle of hell. The Bolognese totally overpowered the omelette. If I was going to wrap my spaghetti Bolognese in something think I would have preferred a tortilla or other sort of wrap that you could toast until the bread got crunchy…maybe add a bit of garlic butter…happy days!
All is not lost though. I think there is something here. I feel a less meat-heavy sauce than Bolognese may be a better option for the future of the Spag-Om™, I have some pesto in my freezer. Maybe next Fridge, Freezer pantry week will see the launch of Spag-Om™2 Electric Booglaoo aka The Pesty Spag-Om™
Welcome to the third chapter of Dining with the Dame. If you haven’t read chapters one and two, this is a series about the food found in the novels of Agatha Christie. Murder on the Links is the third Christie novel, published in 1923. This one, let me tell you had me worried. There are plenty of mentions of dejeuners (it is set mostly in France) but no actual food until towards the very end when finally, Poirot and Hastings sit down to “an excellent omelette”. Thank goodness! My back up, given the proximity of a golf course, was going to be a Golf Pie. I would totally eat it but I think it may be a little too basic B for Poirot! Luckily I was able to choose an Omelette Berrichonne as a more classy alternative!
Murder on the Links – The Plot
After meeting a charming girl on a train from Paris to Calais, Hastings returns to London eager to tell Poirot about the love of his life but Poirot is having none of it. He is bored and irritated by his current cases. He then reads a letter from Paul Renauld imploring him to come to France as soon as poss. They arrive at Merlinville to find Renauld has been murdered on the golf course next to his home by masked men who took him from his home leaving his wife tied up in the house.
There is:
a sexy neighbour and her mother, possibly the mistress of the dead man
a disinherited son
shonky South American business dealings
rivalry between Poirot and the French Inspector Giraud
a crime from the past
another dead body found in the shed and
Hastings’ romance with Dulcie Duveen who will go on to become his wife
There is no shortage of action in this one! I whizzed through it in a couple of days. I am really enjoying these reads!
The Covers
This has become one of my favourite parts of this series. I love seeing how the covers have changed over time. Here is a selection of them and there is not a dud in the bunch. Well, maybe the one in the bottom left corner but all the rest are crackers!
I love the top row second from the left and second from the right which features a Magritte style man with a goofball head. And of course the second from the right on the bottom row with its pulp fiction cover!
Do you have a favourite?
The Recipe
“Finally…we set out for the town. It was past our usual hour of dining, and we were both famished. The first restaurant we came to assuaged the pangs of hunger with an excellent omelette, and an equally excellent entrecote to follow”
Murder on the Links, Agatha Christie
The book did not give much away in terms of what kind of omelette the excellent omelette was so I had to improvise. I turned to the expert, Elizabeth David. And also followed her example by pairing my omelette with a glass of wine!
I used David’s recipe for an Omelette Berrichonne because I had a leek in the fridge and mint in the garden!
Here are some suggestions on how to make the perfect omelette. And here are Elizabeth David’s additions for the Omelette Berrichonne.
I was a little bit unsure about the mint here but it worked really well! Delicious!
The next read is The Man in the Brown Suit. I am already about half way through as it is another page turner…or whatever the ebook version of a page turner is!
My first reaction was “That’s one of the dumbest things I ever heard of. Who puts spaghetti into an omelette?”
But then, I started thinking…what if you replaced the tomato puree with bacon? Would you get something like a reverse carbonara? What if you added fresh tomato? And mushrooms?
Might the Neapolitan Omelette not become something utterly delicious?
I’m throwing this one over to you in a couple of ways.
You can cook it and let me know.
Or you can comment and let me know if you want me to cook it when I get home.
Or both…
Comment, send photo’s if you decide to make it and we’ll decide if this is a lost classic or if it should have been left in the 1970’s.
In his introduction to the Crespéou in Plenty More, Yotam Ottolenghi says
If I was going to sum up my cooking style in five words, 70’s-style-retro-picnic-bling would not be them”
Huh…Weirdly enough that’s exactly the style of cooking I aspire to.
Still, with an introduction like that, there was no way I was not making a Crespéou! I was already thinking about having a month of food I have no idea how to pronounce (Kouign Amman anyone?). Google tells me this is Cresp-ay-oo. And also that it’s from Provence and so-called because the layers look like crepes. Never say I don’t do the research hard yards for you…
So what is this unpronounceable piece of 70’s style crepe like Retro Picnic Bling?
Well, it’s layers of three differently flavoured omelettes stacked on each other and baked. One red, one yellow, one green. Which just goes to show the difference between those classy people of Provence and around here. We’d be calling it something dumb arse like “Traffic Light” Special.
Crespéou – Red Layer
Yotam suggests red peppers for this layer. I used sun-dried-tomatoes because red peppers and I have a love-hate relationship. Without the love.
Hmm, I have realised in looking at this picture of the red layer that I may have put in fresh coriander rather than ground. Oops.
Crespeou Red Layer
Still, I think that is one of the benefits of a dish like this. You can mix up the flavours. I have seen other recipes where people have used, zucchinis, mushrooms, olives, all sorts of things. It could really become a “clean-out-your-fridge” type dish.
Crespéou -Yellow Layer
The yellow layer was intriguing. I have never used turmeric in an omelette before. It reallyworks!!! If I was going to mix this layer up a bit thin crispy discs of pan sautéed potato would be great!
The trick with this dish is to leave the top of your omelettes much more runny than you would any other omelette. The idea of this is that when you stack them and bake them the egg will solidify and the layers will stick together.
Crespeou Yellow Layer2
Crespéou – Green Layer
Another genius combination – green onions, green chilli, basil, tarragon and cumin!!! Wow!!! This layer was really perky and fresh!!!
Once you have cooked all your omelettes, stack them up as neatly as possible. And into the oven they go to cook up that last bit of runny egg.
Once cooked through, you can eat your Crespéou as is or trim the edges with a sharp knife to be able to see the layers. I used a small square pan so I cut mine into four cubes…
Crespeou
These were superb. I had it for lunch I think 3 days running and looked forward to it on day three as much as I did on day one.
And I know what you’re all thinking. Which layer tasted best? I did separate one of my cubes and ate each later alone. And they were all really good. But the combination was a-may-zing!!!!
Yotam Ottolenghi also says of the Crespéou that:
“If there is one recipe that might make me cringe in years to come, it will, for sure be this one”
I say “I love you. Can you not be so happily gay and be my boyfriend? You could cook me Crespéou and we could go on a picnic in a field in Provence and I could dance around listening to “Total Eclipse of the Heart” on a vintage Walkman. Or…hold your head up high and embrace the Crespéou for the lunchbox saviour that it is. And I’m sure even better on picnics. Especially picnics in Provence. With heaps of rosé wine and 1970’s disco music on your vintage Walkman.
Which is fairly redundant – I can’t think of ANYTHING that wouldn’t be better on a picnic in Provence with heaps of rosé wine and 1970’s music on your Walkman. Can you?
Speaking of which…before she was Totally Eclipsed in the Heart Bonnie Tyler was Lost in France which would actually be the perfect musical accompaniment to the Crespéou…
The full recipe can be found in Plenty More or online here
Bonnie Tyler being Lost in France is here:
Make. Listen. Drink lots of rosé and imagine yourself lost in France.
This week, I’m cooking up some more 70’s Style Retro Picnic Bling courtesy of Jane Grigson! Have a tres fantastique week what ever you get up to.
And turn around bright eyes.
And P.S. – I’m totally contemplating the name of this blog to Retro Picnic Bling. Loving it madly!!!
