Now, you might look at this recipe title — green oats, fried egg, bloomed paprika butter, salt and vinegar chips — and expect me to implore you to trust me, to trust the process. You absolutely should not. It’s not that this dish is so offputtingly outlandish or hellbent on offending, but if there’s a voice in your head saying “abhorrent”, then I wouldn’t ignore it. If, however, your curiosity is piqued, then allow me to expatiate.

This is a perfect fiendish little dinner when you want to expend some energy and feel comforted but invigorated, and also to feel as if you’re entirely in control of your life — which is how I feel whenever I mix the non-obvious along with incorporating ingredients that have their own list of ingredients — and with a little dexterity, it can be done entirely in one pan, thanks to the volcanically heat-holding properties of the oats.

So, what’s in it for you? First of all, the savoury oats — if you’ve only ever had porridge with brown sugar and milk, consider the hessian nuttiness of the oats, consider the soft, starchy comfort of risotto or congee or polenta, and there you are. Here I’ve bejewelled them with handfuls of finely sliced spinach, further adding to the risotto evocation, and making the most of spinach’s ability to dissolve in large quantities like colour-free raspberry flavoured Raro into a plastic 2L jug of water. Draped over is a fried egg, and I’m fortunate that my eggs tend to come from my mother and aunty’s respective chickens, sturdy of shell and flaming tangerine of yolk. I go by my usual method, which is to coax the egg into coagulation by covering it and turning off the heat, which tends to successfully solidify the whites while leaving the yolk flowing and treacly. The egg brings richness and luxury to the relatively sober oats — not unlike wearing an flamboyant hat with a black turtleneck — but we’re not done yet.

Next, you warm through some smoked paprika in plenty of butter — this is called blooming, and it allows the flavours to do the titular opening up to make themselves more known to your senses. The butter pools, vibrantly vermillion around the plate with the smoky sweetness of the paprika calling to the olfactory mind the sense of approaching a sausage sizzle in a distant hardware store carpark. And finally, you scrunch up some salt and vinegar chips — ripples, please, the kettle chips are too eggshell-like to the tooth — providing zinginess, always-welcome salty crunch, and a pleasing obstinate whimsy. I suppose you could use another flavour but the way the salt and vinegar kicks down the door to your tastebuds is the necessary flourish after all that heft and richness, raining down both seasoning and texture.

It’s silly, but it works — a rambunctious yet exquisite balance between soft, savoury, salty, starchy, rich, crunchy, and tangy. And if you don’t believe me by this point, I mean…I wouldn’t rush out and make it, but I thank you for letting me describe it at length, at least.

For further recipes that require an element of trust-fall, I recommend my Lemon Feta Pistachio Cookies, my Quadruple Crunch Bars, this Pappardelle with Calamari, Corn, and Mascarpone, these Prawns with Rocket, Gruyere and Lemon and, of a piece, my Salt and Vinegar Beans and Salt and Vinegar Potato Gratin.

Green oats, fried egg, bloomed paprika butter, salt and vinegar chips

A not-so-subtle dance of flavours and textures, you’ll already know if it works for you. The quantities are somewhat vibes-based, and you don’t have to make this one-pan but it sure can be. Recipe by myself.

• 1/3 cup whole oats
• 1/2 teaspoon chicken stock powder, or flavour of your choice
• 250ml water, plus extra if needed
• Two solid handfuls – roughly 60g – baby spinach leaves
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 good egg
• 3 tablespoons salted butter
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 x 45g bag salt and vinegar ripple chips

1: Gently toast the 1/3 cup whole oats in a wide nonstick pan until warmed through and nuttily fragrant. Stir in the half teaspoon of chicken stock powder and 160ml (2/3 cup) of the water and bring just to a boil, then simmer for five to seven minutes, stirring often, until the oats are tender and releasing their starches.

2: Between stirring the oats, pile up your two hearty handfuls of spinach on a board and chop it up, roughly but as finely as you can manage. Stir this pulverised green pile into the oats along with the remaining 80ml water (1/3 cup), letting the spinach melt into the oats for a minute before spatula-ing it all onto a serving plate and setting aside.

3: Turn the heat down to medium-low in the same pan and warm up the tablespoon of olive oil. Crack the egg into a small bowl then slide it into the pan, place a lid on top and then turn the heat off but leave the pan there for two minutes, or until the white is set but the yolk is still wobbly — now, this is how I fry my eggs, not unlike the method of baking pavlova where you turn the oven off, BUT if you have a go-to method then go ahead and do that. Slide the fried egg onto the oats.

4: Penultimately, either in the residual heat (if your stovetop is like mine and sticks around) or returning the pan to a medium heat, melt the three tablespoons of butter, stir in the teaspoon of smoked paprika, and once the butter starts to bubble, spoon the butter over the egg and oats, and turn off the heat for good.

5: Open the bag of salt and vinegar chips, eat a few of them, then crush up the rest by scrunching the bag with your fists, and sprinkle them liberally over everything on the plate.

Serves 1. If increasing this for two, I’d up the oats to 1/2 cup with triple that of water, you can keep roughly the same amount of spinach and chips, but add an extra tablespoon of butter. And, I assume it goes without saying, but add another egg.

Note: If your frying pan doesn’t have a lid, you can do what I do and sit a metal pot lid over the egg, like a little sauna tent, for the same amount of time stipulated. Also, I tried this recipe with kettle chips, and can report that ripples are monumentally superior in texture in this context.

music lately:

Think and Act by Curve, a psychedelic scuzzy dream that is definitely looking at its shoes. This whole album (Doppelgänger) rules.

Cheree by Suicide, hearing this song for the first time while watching Downtown 81 some years ago, it gently changed my life with its shimmering, twinkling, uneasy sincerity.

I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise, as performed by Liza Minnelli. I wouldn’t want to have to choose a favourite Gershwin, but this song is so effervescently ebullient without a single wasted syllable that no matter how you approach it, especially with Liza’s belting, it feels like your heart is windsurfing and your soul has just leapt from a plane with a silk parachute ripcord in one hand.

For some reason that feels indicative of how much everything that was built to be cool now wilfully sucks, I can’t see a full video of Doechii’s Catfish Grammy performance anywhere on youtube, and all the media sites are linking to tweets of uploaded partial clips which is not what I would personally call journalistic integrity. Anyway, if you can find the performance, it is spectacular.

PS: ReliefAid’s Gaza Appeal continues to work to deliver water to people in Gaza who desperately need aid and is worth donating to if you’re looking for somewhere to put your spare money.