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Creamy Lancashire Cheese Omelette with Spinach & Prosciutto

Sean Sellers  in Dessert Wine, Blow the Bank, Meat & Poultry, Muscat , , , , , ,

InterWined Food
Each Friday, InterWined.com pairs one great wine with one great meal and publishes the results along with the recipe in a little feature it likes to call ‘Blow the Bank’.

Two weeks ago, I told the story of the aspiring journalist keen on the details of InterWined’s copyright and how much credit she would have to give to use the wine reviews and recommendations that appear on the site in her publication. Now, InterWined.com could dismiss her comments as ones made under the influence of several glasses wine (which they were), but they raise a very interesting question.

In the age of hyperlinks and trackbacks, embeds and torrents, when is it stealing?

So far so Carrie Bradshaw…right?

The question is an especially poignant one for food writers.

As regular readers of this feature will know, it was the attempt to answer this very question that ultimately prevented ‘Blow the Bank’ from sharing the recipe for Slow-Cooked Sweet & Sour Lamb from Greg and Lucy Malouf’s Saha cookbook without the authors’ permission, but allowed it to publish so many recipes from some the Web’s best food blogs.

The question isn’t just one of credit and permission; it’s also one of degree. Numerous food blogs and cookbooks include recipes adapted from ones found elsewhere. But whose to say how much of an adaptation must take place until it becomes your own. Does simply changing raisins to sultanas count? How about 100g to 150g or turning a loaf made with sweet potato and spinach into a muffin made with sweet potato and apple?

And what about, following one recipe, such as the basic omelette recipe in James Peterson’s Cooking to make another, like InterWined’s Own Creamy Lancashire Omelette with Spinach & Prosciutto?

Creamy Lancashire Cheese Omelette with Spinach & ProsciuttoOmeletteCreamy Lancashire Cheese Omelette

Omelettes can prove tricky to prepare, but Peterson’s multiple recipes are incredibly informative, helpful, and visually easy-to-follow. The key to success is a well-buttered pan. The key to a great pairing (perhaps one of InterWined’s best) is good quality dessert wine.

That’s right — dessert wine. Regardless of its name, it needn’t be confined to desserts and puddings. In fact, paired with InterWined’s Own Creamy Lancashire Omelette with Spinach & Prosciutto, the 2005 Maculan Dindarello (12%) from Oddbins for £8.49 is close to perfection, its sweetness finding an excellent balance in the flavour of the egg and butter and saltiness of the prosciutto.

As described by the wineseller at Oddbins, the Dindarello, made of 100% Muscato by one of the Veneto regions most respected winemakers, also has a strong smell of nutmeg on the nose. There’s some honey on the palate, but not as much as some other dessert wines and only a little hint of fruit. Mostly, it’s the smell of nutmeg that wins your attention: 9.0 with InterWined’s omelette (8.8 with bakery-bought black current cheesecake).

InterWined’s Own Recipe in Full

Creamy Lancashire Omelette with Spinach & Prosciutto

Ingredients:
2-3 eggs
100ml semi-skimmed milk
1 large knob of butter
200g spinach, chopped
100g grated creamy Lancashire cheese (mild white cow’s cheese)
150-200g cubed prosciutto

Instructions:
1. Beat the eggs in a large bowl, while adding the milk, for only a couple of minutes
2. Add the grated cheese and continue to beat the eggs, until the cheese is fully mixed
3. Add the prosciutto and a few twists of freshly cracked black pepper
4. Add the chopped spinach and stir lightly
5. Heat a large knob of butter in an omelette pan on a high heat, until the butter is bubbly and lightly-browned
6. Lower the heat to medium and pour in the omelette mixture
7. With a spatula gently start to lift the edges of the omelette as it cooks to ensure that it doesn’t stick to the pan
8. After a few minutes of cooking, fold the omelette (James Peterson recommends lifting the pan toward you to let thinner omelettes fold naturally and lifting the pan away from you and pounding the pan’s handle to help fold thicker omelettes.)
9. Once cooked, remove from the pan and serve warm

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