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Spinach recipe with raisins and pine nuts

Tasty spinach recipe that you can serve as first course or side dish for lunch or dinner. Try this everyday Mediterranean quick easy recipe with a medieval origin.

Easy spinach recipe

The following recipe is a very popular and easy vegetarian recipe already given in old cookbooks of the Catalan Countries.

Ingredients for this spinach recipe

2 bundles spinach

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

2 handfuls raisins (about 2 ounces) - pitted

1 handful pine nuts (about 1 ounce)

1 1/2 cups water

Salt

1 hard-boiled egg - optional, finely chopped

Spinach recipe preparations instructions

Soak the raisins and pine nuts in water for 1 hour or scald them with 1 cup of water, which takes only a moment. Drain them. If you have no time at all, you can skip this step.

Wash the spinach thoroughly in the sink, at least twice. If they are organic, they may have a lot of sand. Remove the stalks with your fingers, and discard them.

Bring 1/2 cup water to a boil in a deep pot. Drop the washed spinach in it, and cook them uncovered for 7 minutes over medium heat. Usually 1 1/2 cups water is more than enough, but make sure that the water doesn't evaporate completely. Add some water if necessary. Drain the spinach very well in a colander. Press them carefully with a wooden spoon if necessary. It is important that they have no water. Finely chop the spinach in the same colander with a pair of kitchen scissors.

Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil in a frying pan, and add the raisins and pine nuts. Sautee for 2 minutes over low heat, or until the raisins swell. Stir all the time. Add the drained spinach and a pinch of salt, and sautee for 5 to 7 minutes. Stir constantly to prevent sticking.

Serve hot. Serves 2 as first course or 4 on the side.

Optional step - If you like eggs, you can add a chopped hard-boiled egg over the spinach before serving them. It enhances the flavor of this easy vegetarian recipe, and the yellow and white colors of the egg contrast with the deep green of the cooked spinach, making this spinach recipe more special.

Variations of this spinach recipe

Some home cooks add small pieces of ham or bacon to taste to the hot oil in the frying pan and sautee them briefly before adding the raisins and pine nuts.

You can also add a chopped garlic clove to the hot oil, and sautee for a moment before adding the raisins and pine nuts. You can also add a small pinch of pepper when you add the salt to the spinach.

Some people even cook the spinach patiently in the frying pan for almost half an hour, stirring all the time to prevent sticking. This spinach recipe will get a more intense flavor from the sweet raisins, and an stronger aroma of Mediterranean resin from the pine nuts.

Substitutions for this quick easy recipe

You can replace the spinach of this spinach recipe with Swiss chard as the main ingredient if you prefer it, as a variation, or when you don't find spinach in the market. The cooking time will be 10 instead of 7 minutes, as Swiss chard is a little bit harder, but it will still be a quick an easy meatless recipe.

More tasty meatless recipes

Roasted bell pepper recipe.

Easy mushroom recipe.

Mushroom soup recipe.

Notes on spinach

Popular wisdom has always said that spinach contains a lot of iron, and that they are healthy. However, lately, concerning food we in the West have become very dramatic. Some authors say that spinach don't contain as much spinach as we thought; others write that we should be very careful with any spinach recipe because they contain oxalic acid, which is harmful for the kidneys, and so on. If you listen to them all, there is nothing left to eat! The key is variety and moderation.

This quick easy recipe is inexpensive, in spite of the pine nuts, because you need a very small quantity of them. I recommend you to use Mediterranean pine nuts; Chinese pine nuts are much cheaper, but they are not as aromatic as ours. This recipe is so simple that you need top quality ingredients to bring out the characteristic natural flavors of this spinach recipe.