For this article, we’re featuring a Waitrose recipe that we recently tried: spinach and mushroom roulade. This is certainly an eye-turner and people ask twice what it is, so this recipe would work well as a starter for a few guests. The original recipe can be found here: http://www.waitrose.com/content/waitrose/en/home/recipes/recipe_directory/s/spinach-and-mushroomroulade.html.

Unfortunately, this author forgot to buy mushrooms before cooking the recipe so had to improvise, using leftover vegetables as the filling. The result was just as good and added even more colourful to this already vibrant roulade.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:

• 450g spinach
• 2 tbsp garlic infused oil
• 5 medium eggs, separated
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 2tbsp plain flour
• 200g reduced fat soft cheese
• 300g chestnut mushrooms
• 150g shiitake mushrooms
• 25g parmesan

Recipe:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC and line a baking tray (ideally 23x32cm) with baking parchment.
2. Wilt the spinach for 3 – 4 minutes in a large saucepan (with the lid on). Strain and squeeze out as much of the liquid as possible.
3. Put the spinach in a food processor (or large bowl if you’re using a stick blender) with the egg yolks, nutmeg, flour and 1 tbsp of soft cheese. Blitz until smooth and then season.
4. In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff and then fold into the spinach mixture. Pour this into the lined baking tray and baking in the oven for 15 minutes.
5. Here you’re meant to prepare the mushroom mixture as per the below instructions, but we made a slight error and forgot these, so improvised with left over vegetables chopped up and soften in a pan with the garlic oil for 5-10 minutes instead before mixing with the cream cheese.
6. Heat the garlic oil in a large frying pan. Slice the mushrooms and fry for 5 minutes until softened. Add the remaining soft cheese and cook for 1 minute further
7. Place a large sheet of parchment on your working surface and sprinkle with the grated parmesan. Take the spinach sponge out the oven and upturn onto the sheet of baking paper, so that one side of the sponge gets coated in the cheese.
8. Carefully peel back the top layer of baking parchment, spread over the mushroom mixture leaving at least a half-inch gap around the edges. Then gently roll up the sponge into the roulade.