Bombay omelette

Spice things up with this Bombay omelette.  I had my first masala omelette on a trip to India and it totally converted me to eating punchy flavours in the morning. Breakfast in India isn’t a sweet affair – no sugary cereals or cakes, but spicy masala omelettes, dosas with sambal, meals that really will set you up for the day and won’t weigh you down.

This is now a go-to dish in our house and not just at breakfast time – it will often get made in the evening if we’re hungry and tired. It’s incredibly straightforward and easily adaptable, depending on what you have to hand. A perfect protein-packed start to the day.

Ingredients (serves 2)

½ red onion

2 small vine tomatoes

½ bunch of coriander

1 green chilli

4 large eggs

½tsp on ground turmeric

½tsp garam masala

½tsp ground cumin

Sea salt and freshly ground black

Pepper

50g baby spinach leaves

½ a lemon

2 knobs of butter

Method

Peel and finely chop the onion. Halve the tomatoes, scoop out the seeds with a teaspoon and discard, then finely chop the flesh. Finely chop the coriander stalks and leaves. Halve the chilli, deseed and finely slice.

Whisk the eggs together until well combined, then season generously and whisk in the onion, tomatoes, coriander, chilli, turmeric, garam masala and cumin. Put the spinach leaves into a bowl, squeeze just enough lemon to coat, toss together, then leave to one side.

Melt half the butter in a medium non-stick frying pan over a medium heat and ladle in half the omelette mixture. Swirl the eggs around for two minutes, pushing them to the middle and tilting the pan so that all the mixture has a chance to set. Leave it for a minute, then slip the omelette on to your serving plate.

Top with half the dressed spinach and fold the omelette in half. Serve straight away, and repeat with the remaining butter, omelette mix and spinach.

Extracted from Stirring Slowly by Georgina Hayden, published by Square Peg, £20