Spanakorizo
Spinach and rice cooked in one pan where the spinach water is the cooking liquid and nothing else is added.
Vegan.
Ingredients
- 1 kg spinach
- 200 g short-grain rice
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 4 spring onions, sliced
- 1 large bunch dill, chopped
- 100 ml olive oil
- 1 lemon, juiced
- about 300 ml hot water
- salt and pepper
Method
- THE SPINACH WATER IS THE COOKING LIQUID, which is why the spinach is NOT wrung out here -- the exact opposite of the spinach pie on this site, where wringing it is the whole point. There the water ruins the pastry; here it is most of what the rice cooks in, and throwing it away means adding plain water instead and losing the flavour with it.
- SO THE RICE GOES IN AFTER THE SPINACH HAS COLLAPSED, not before, and the water is added by eye. A kilo of spinach gives up a surprising amount and the extra water needed is always less than expected.
- Spinach washed well and roughly chopped, stalks and all.
- Oil in a wide pan, onion softened 8 minutes without colouring. Spring onions for the last 2.
- Spinach in by the handful, each lot allowed to collapse before the next. It will seem far too much for the pan and will reduce to about a fifth.
- Cooked 5 minutes until it has given up its liquid and there is a visible pool.
- Rice stirred in, and cooked 2 minutes so every grain is coated in the oil.
- Hot water added to come about 1 cm above the rice -- which will be LESS than the packet suggests because of the spinach liquid already there. Start with 200 ml and add more only if it dries.
- Lid on, lowest heat, 18 minutes. NOT STIRRED at any point, which would break the grains and turn it to porridge.
- Heat off, dill scattered over, lid back on, 10 minutes to steam.
- Lemon juice, salt and pepper forked through at the end. The lemon goes in last because it goes dull if it cooks.
- Eaten warm rather than hot, with more oil poured over and feta beside it.
Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.
Filed under Greece · All recipes