From Mrs Harvey’s
Sister-in-Law and other tasty dishes, Margaret Dunn, Murdoch Books, 2007.
I seem to be picking up recipes at the moment that all have a
tomato sauce in them of some kind. I had a Mexican salsa (great) and a tomato
chutney (not so great). Now here’s Jock’s spinach pancakes with a tomato sauce.
I have no idea who Jock was but this cookery book is a medley
of odds and sods of recipes that the author has collected over time. They are
usually wonderful family-type recipes that work because they have been tried
over time and savoured.
Jock has no instructions for making the pancakes. You just
go ahead and make your own from your favourite recipe.
The filling includes chicken livers which I just ignored. The
remaining ingredients (cooked spinach, cottage cheese, eggs, pepper and salt)
were basically blended and chilled before using them to fill the pancakes.
The tomato sauce was an annoying recipe. It was written in
straight prose rather than recipe format. There was no ingredient list to
begin; you just had to find the ingredients as you worked your way through the
instructions that all came in one long paragraph.
I fried onions and green capsicums until softened, then
added peeled and chopped tomatoes. A mixture of seasonings was added: salt,
pepper, sugar, cloves, bay leaf and oregano. It was cooked until it had
thickened a little.
The filled pancakes were placed in a casserole, the sauce
poured over and some grated parmesan sprinkled on top. It was then baked in
the oven for roughly 30 minutes.
All in all it was a pleasant comfortable dish, nothing out
of the ordinary but a good mid-week dish that left you satisfied and not over
filled. With a green salad it made an enjoyable meal.
Taste: ✔✔✔
Ease of
cooking: ✔✔✔
