Irish Lasagne

I love the contrast of white potato on green spinach. One of the kids calls this an Irish Lasagne and I can see why! The beauty of this recipe is that once you’ve prepared it, there is nothing left to do other than leave it in the oven and wait for it to be ready. Baby potatoes are good value at the moment in some supermarkets so if you’re using them don’t be afraid to leave the skins on, it adds to the texture and flavour. In general you will find a bag of 1kg of potatoes ranging in price from 59c to €1 on the shelves at the moment. Add in a bit of spinach, some grated parmesan & some hot chicken stock (stock cube if necessary) and the total cost for this dish works out at approximately 30c per person on bargain basement prices, rising to 50c per person.  Still good value no matter how you look at it! This is one of the 4 “leftover” dishes I was able to make from the Lidl Recipe booklet I mentioned in my Kedgeree post.  Thank you so much to the readers who tried out my last recipe and gave me great feedback. I’m delighted that it was such a success and that people are eating it!

Ingredients (serves 4 adults)

• 6-8 medium potatoes, peeled – unpeeled weight, approximately 1kg
• 2 handfuls of spinach
• 300ml hot chicken stock
• 50g grated parmesan/cheddar (optional)

Method Preheat a fan oven to 170 degrees celcius. Lightly grease a large baking dish (20cm diameter). Slice the potatoes as finely as you can, I normally try to get as close to 5mm (half a cm) as I can but if they’re bigger it’s not a disaster, just the dish will take slightly longer to cook. Put a layer of the sliced potatoes, slightly overlapping, on the bottom of the baking dish so that it’s completely covered. Take a handful of spinach and pack it down on top of the layer of potatoes. Pour 1/4 of the chicken stock on top. It will wilt the spinach a little. Next, add another layer of potatoes, then spinach and stock. Repeat until you have 3 layers of potato and 2 sandwich layers of spinach. Cover the baking dish with tin foil and bake in the oven for 90 minutes.  If you’re worried about burning hands/contents of the dish spilling over, pop the baking dish on top of a tray. After 90 minutes, remove the tinfoil and return to the oven for a further 15 minutes. You can add the grated parmesan when you remove the tinfoil before putting the dish back in the oven for a crispy, cheesy topping. You’ll excuse the shortness of this blogpost. I’m stuck for time today. By the way, I’m delighted to be shortlisted in 2 categories for the Blog Awards Ireland and also nominated as Best Independent Podcaster in the 2013 Realex Fire Web Awards. Don’t worry, I’ve had many a celebratory cup of tea since I found out, and many more to come. Shhhh don’t tell anybody but I believe a cup of tea on its own is a celebratory occasion… Particularly those that are hot from start to finish!