A quick lunch for me is often wilted spinach on toast with a few gratings of fresh ginger thrown into the sauté pan with the spinach and then finished with a drizzle of high quality olive oil on both the bread and the spinach.
The quality of the bread should not be overlooked when making any kind of bruschetta and I prefer to use my home-made sourdough because the crumb does not become too brittle after toasting like Tuscan bread.
This recipe came about when I was trying to jazz it up a bit to serve as an antipasto for guests. We always have a jar of home-made preserved lemons in the fridge because they keep for months and are useful for many different dishes.
Preserved lemons really add a fresh zing to the spinach and shrimp and go very well with ginger. This is a clean tasting and super healthy antipasto and my lunch just got a little more interesting as well.
Ingredients for an antipasto for 4:
400g fresh spinach
16 small shrimp
one inch piece of fresh ginger
1 preserved lemon
4 large slices of good bread, lightly toasted
high quality extra virgin Italian olive oil
Salt
Directions:
1. Finely grate the ginger, remove all the pith from the lemon and dice the zest.
2. Generously oil a large sauté pan and add all the spinach and ginger on high heat with a sprinkling of salt, stirring everything constantly for 3 - 5 minutes until all the spinach shrinks and becomes darker and fully wilted.
3. While the spinach is cooking, oil a small pan and add the cleaned and deveined shrimp and a little salt. Give them 2 - 3 minutes on high heat until cooked through.
4. Roughly chop together the cooked spinach and shrimp and scatter on top the diced lemon zest.
5. Drizzle oil onto the lightly toasted sourdough bread (below) and add the spinach, shrimp and lemon mixture and serve warm.
