Spinach was my nightmare when I was a child. Grandma Violetta “hid” them in the soup. Grandma Irene to convince me showed me Popeye the sailor man. I wondered why my grandmother wanted me to become a bald and beefy sailor, and I found justification for my aversion to these green and somewhat insipid leaves.
This recipe, mentioned by the author Giaquinto, makes them very good thanks to the presence of pine nuts and sweet raisins and the tingling of hot pepper. At home we do not use ham fat, as per the original recipe, to make it a little healthier and less rich in cholesterol.
Spinach Roman style
- Preparation time: 30 minutes
- Ingredients for 6 servings
- Difficulty: Easy recipe
- Ingredients
- 1.35 kg or 3 lb of spinach
- 1 clove of garlic
- 75 gr or 3 oz of pine nuts
- 75 gr or 3 oz of raisins
- 1 chili
- Extra virgin olive oil to taste
- Salt to taste.
- Instructions
- Clean the spinach and wash them very well.
- In a saucepan with boiling water put the spinach and cook until the water is boiling again. Drain well.
- Meanwhile, put the raisins in a bowl with boiling water. Drain and squeeze them well.
- In a non-stick pan toast the pine nuts for a few minutes. Remove them and leave them in a dish.
- In the same non-stick pan fry a clove of garlic and a small piece of hot pepper over low heat. Add the well-wrung spinach and cook over a moderate flame for a few minutes.
- Insert pine nuts and raisins and salt.
Tips to ensure the success of the dish:
- Vegetables should never be boiled in water at 210°F because a high temperature would ruin the chlorophyll and cause it to lose nutrients. The temperature should oscillate between 197° and 208°, so once the cooking water reaches a boil again, the vegetables should be drained.
- When the spinach is drained, you can insert the bowl in which they are into a pan full of ice to make them cool quickly. This procedure fixes the chlorophyll, andtherefore the vegetables should not turn yellow.
- If you love baby spinach, they werevery soft can be cooked directly in the pan.
