A while ago, I was asked to do some breakfast canapés. It’s an interesting concept, because canapés are usually little delicate evening bites. And breakfast is…well…bacon and eggs.

Anyway, I put my thinking cap on, and one of the ideas I came up with was a fritatta. In many ways, it’s like a reconstructed fry up: eggs, tomatoes, potatoes, spinach…all breakfast ingredients. The tricky part was scaling things up for forty people.

To try out the amounts and cooking times, I did a practice frittata for a cricket tea on Saturday. Interestingly, it went down very well. Interesting, because Thomas is firmly in the ‘Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche’ camp. But apparently if you remove the pastry, and stick in some potatoes, then it’s fine.

I made the cricket frittata quite deep, and cut it into chunky rectangles so each piece was a few bites. For the breakfast canapés, I changed the amounts so that the frittatas were thinner, and smaller. I served the traybake frittata with a Sarah Raven tomato and chilli jam (recipe here). It’s a brilliant recipe which is very cheap to make. Instead of four red chillies, I used four green ones, and then added a guajillo and ancho chilli, which have nice rounded, fruity heat.

I doubt that many of you will be in a breakfast canapé situation. But this tasted delicious cold, and would be a super thing to take on a picnic, or just do for a big lunch or supper - and serve with a salad.

Recipe: Traybake Frittata, makes 25 cricketers’ portions

820g potatoes, parboiled, cooled and then sliced
500g onions, sliced and gently fried in butter until soft and golden
450g frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed out
270g sundried tomatoes, chopped finely (Tescos are selling a jar for £2.89!)
200g feta cheese, finely crumbled
2 tbsp crème fraîche
18 eggs

1. Prepare all the ingredients above. This will take a while – 20 minutes for the potatoes and onions – but it’s worth investing the time here, and getting everything all organised, and lined up in separate bowls.

2. Break all the eggs into a large jug. Whisk gently, and then stir in the crème fraîche.

3. Combine all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl, tip the egg mixture over it all, and use your hands to gently mix everything together.

4. Line a tin with greaseproof paper. I used a 40cm x 24cm, deep baking tin, which worked well with the quantities above.

5. Put the frittata in an oven at 180°C for 40 minutes. Turn it down to 160°C for another 20 minutes - or until it’s cooked. Stick a sharp knife in the centre of the tray to check that it’s cooked through to the centre.

6. Turn the frittata out of the tin, peel away the greaseproof paper, and divide into bite sized portions. If you put the frittata in the fridge, and allow it to cool before doing this, then it cuts up more neatly.