Spinach is a symbol of Winter in Turkey. I love this green vegetable so much that I miss it in Summer a lot and as I don’t want to use frozen ones, I wait for the end of Summer impatiently. And I realize the coming of Winter when I see spinach on bazaar stands. I use it in many ways; I use it green salad, I make borek(a kind of pastry) of spinach, I make several dishes from it. Moreover, I don’t waste their heads (In fact I couldn’t decide what word to use to describe that part of spinach. I mean not the leaves, the root or the pinkish end), I also make a dish from it.
And when I have a look at my blog, to decide what to add, I noticed that I haven’t added any recipe of spinach yet. So I decided to cook an appetizing spinach dish for dinner. I’ll add the other spinach recipes later.
In Turkey, generally people love spinach dishes with yogurt, but doctors say that when you eat it with yogurt, the calcium in yogurt and the vitamins in spinach combine and this makes zero benefit. If you don’t care about vitamins, but you are just in search for taste, go ahead. I sometimes do that as they are perfect pairs. But generally, I cook it with egg and no yogurt is needed that time. I think that writing about this yogurt-free recipe first will be a good idea.
Yumurtali Ispanak
Ingredients
• 500gr spinach (and water and salt for cleaning)
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• ½ tbsp pepper or tomato paste
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 2 eggs (depending on the number of servings, this one is for two)
Cleaning spinach requires utmost attention because it may have a lot of sand or soil among its leaves. To clean it well, you should put some warm water in two seperate large bowls.
Cut their roots (the small pinkish parts at the end) and put them aside (we’ll use it in another dish a few days later).
Put the spinach leaves in the first bowl, wash them there and transfer them into the other bowl full of water. Then fill the first bowl with water again, this time add 1tsp salt in water and then transfer the spinach into this one and wait for some minutes. All the sand will subside at the bottom thanks to this salt. Then do this step one or two more times until you believe it’s completely cleaned. If you have the chance of buying cleaned spinach, you are so lucky that you don’t waste any time doing these steps.
After cleaning them well, chop them with a knife or tear them with hands. They don’t have to be thin as they get smaller while cooking.
Put olive oil in a skillet and saute the diced onion in it until golden. Then add pepper or tomato paste in it and put the chopped spinach into it. If your skillet is smaller for the amount of spinach, don’t worry; put them little by little. When they start to cook, they shrink, so all of them will fit into the skillet.
When they all lose their color, add 1 tsp salt and black pepper into it and put its lid on. Cook it on medium heat for about 15 or 20 minutes until all its water evaporates. Then break the eggs on it.
And while serving put one egg with the spinach on each plate. You can serve some scallions or other greens like garden cress, arugula, lettuce or some pickles near it.
Zerrin, again a lovely dish with spinach & an egg!!! What a lovely combination of flavours!!
Thank you sophie, you know how much I love egg, so I love this combination as well.
Interesting–I didn’t know that about spinach and yogurt. It looks fantastic with the egg!
Love it topped with egg!
Do you think the same is true if you combine spinach with cream?
This is a great combo and very healthy, nice photo shot! Nice to learn Turkish dishes from your blog : )
Lisa – I learnt it from my pregnant friends. Doctors always warn them not to eat these together or even within the same hour. They say that we should eat yogurt 1 hour before or after spinach.
Natasha – It’s most probably true for cream as it’s also a dairy product.
Janet- Thank you so much. It tastes wonderful.
Back again with fav egg dish..Is it a breakfast item?I will add the award logo soon Zerrin…thanx
Vrinda – It’s originally for lunch or dinner, but I love it at breakfast as well.
Interesting about the spinach and yoghurt, because thats a combination that I love (though I’m willing to give spinach + egg a try too!)
Daily Spud – I love the combination too but I have been trying not to eat them so often since I learnt it.
I love spinach and eggs together!
I do spinach egg and goat cheese, and it probably is true of that also? I’ve never heard about calcium and spinach before.
I do love my eggs with spinach though.
Big thumbs up. Great alternative to eggs florentine (which admittedly I have never cooked).
From lack of having all the listed ingredients I did a bit of improvisation:
Had no onion, so used some finely sliced fresh garlic – which I fried a little in avocado oil and a bit of margarine (had no butter) – then added the tomato paste;
Silverbeet next (had no spinach) which I cooked quite a bit longer till nearly soft;
Once the silverbeet was pretty much cooked and the eggs were added I sprinkled some freshly grated parmesan and covered it with a lid until how one likes their eggs – I like my yolk runny.
Had with toasted white sandwich bread – yum, yum, yum.
A very satisfying dish indeed.
KiwiSue- I do love such comments giving additional information. You gave a fantasitc recipe there! Love of cooking is something like this. Being inspired by a dish and cooking something else with your adjustments. It’s the magic, isn’t it?I’ve never tried to cook silverbeet, might be a good substitute. I must give it a try. And parmesan on the top sounds amazing! I bet it makes the dish irresistible! You made me hungry with this recipe, thanks!
Thank you for your feedback Zerrin. I was telling my friend about this particular recipe. Thank god for history in favourites – thought I had bookmarked it.
I have this really nice scrummy, yummy improvisation for porridge, but was not sure which post I could add it to as you have nothing similar on your breakfast topics. Would love to be able to share with your readers. Is this possible?
Awesome site – great photos – definetely an art to it. Have seen some horrible, horrible pictures of food – very sad.