My mother used to (and still does) distinguish weekday food from weekend food. On weeknights we used to have mostly peasant food like meatballs, sausages and mash, soups etc and on the weekends she would go all out with fillet of beef, seafood etc.

I take after her, I always make the weekends something extra, I definitely spend more money on meat for the weekends, but my weekday food can sometimes be quite different from my parents’. I use more pasta and make different kind of soups, whereas my dad would be happy with boiled potatoes five days a week. I need to mix it up a little and try new things. But sometimes I go back to the peasant food. Last week I made this stewed spinach served with lots of fried things; diced potatoes, eggs and frankfurters (it works with bacon too).

I have actually never made this before, or asked my mother for a recipe, but I was really happy that it tasted like my mother’s version. Yum!

Stewed spinach, fried potatoes, eggs and frankfurters, serves 2

4 large potatoes

butter

olive oil

salt

white pepper

sugar

flour

milk

nutmeg

frozen chopped spinach

eggs

frankfurters

Peel the potatoes and cut into small dices. Fry in plenty of butter and oilve oil on medium heat until they’re done. Season with salt, white pepper and 2 pinches of sugar (very important and the key to perfect fried potatoes). Make a roux of butter and flour, add milk (warm milk makes it quicker), stir the whole time and let it thicken. Season with nutmeg, salt and white pepper. Add as much frozen chopped spinach as you think is good (I used about 400 g for 750 ml milk). Let the spinach heat up. Fry eggs and frankfurters and serve with the potatoes and spinach-bechamel.