Nargesi

The only seasoning is salt, garlic and pepper, and the eggs go in last onto spinach already cooked down.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg.

Ingredients

• 500 g spinach, chopped
• 2 onions, sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 60 ml sunflower oil

Method

1. THE ONLY SEASONING IS SALT, GARLIC AND PEPPER, AND THE EGGS GO IN LAST ONTO SPINACH ALREADY COOKED DOWN. Its article gives the whole dish in two sentences -- eggs, fried onion and spinach, spiced with salt, garlic and pepper -- and the restraint is the recipe. No turmeric, which is in almost every other savoury page here; no advieh, no saffron, no herbs beyond the spinach itself. So what you taste is sweet fried onion, spinach and a great deal of black pepper, and the eggs are the last thing to go in rather than the medium everything else sits in.
2. THE ONIONS ARE FRIED PROPERLY BROWN FIRST. Sliced, twenty minutes over a medium-low heat until deep gold and sweet. With four ingredients, the onion is carrying the sweetness on its own and pale onion will not do it.
3. THE SPINACH IS COOKED DOWN AND ITS WATER DRIVEN OFF. Added to the onions and cooked until collapsed, then kept on the heat a few minutes longer until the pan is dry. Spinach is mostly water and an egg dish built on wet spinach will not set.
4. THE GARLIC GOES IN AFTER THE SPINACH, NOT BEFORE. Crushed, stirred in for the last minute before the eggs. Added at the start, alongside twenty minutes of onion frying, it would be bitter.
5. THE EGGS ARE SET GENTLY AND NOT STIRRED HARD. Make four wells in the spinach, break an egg into each, cover, and give it five or six minutes on a low heat until the whites are set and the yolks still soft. Its name is the narcissus flower, and leaving the yolks whole and round is what the name is describing.
6. ITS ARTICLE CALLS IT A SPINACH OMELETTE AND BOTH TREATMENTS ARE DEFENSIBLE. If you would rather have it as a proper omelette, beat the eggs and pour them over instead. The whole-yolk version is the one that answers to the name.
7. IT IS A BREAKFAST DISH AND ITS ARTICLE SAYS SO. Eaten frequently in the morning, with bread.
8. THERE IS AN OLDER RELATIVE AND IT WAS MADE WITH WHOLE EGGS. Its article cites a 10th-century book describing narjisiyya as a dish made with sunny-side-up eggs, and a 13th-century Andalusian cookbook carrying a related recipe, while noting it is unclear which dish came first.

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 Iran · All recipes