Arabian Spinach

dicentra's Note:

This comes from 1000 Great Recipes. Posting for ZWT3.

• Total Time: 15 mins
• Prep Time: 5 mins
• Cook Time: 10 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion , sliced
• 2 garlic cloves , crushed
• 3 ½ cups fresh spinach , washed and shredded
• 1 teaspoon cumin seed
• 1 (15 ounce) can chickpeas , drained and rinsed
• 1 tablespoon butter
• salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the onion for about 5 minutes until softened.
2. Add the garlic and cumin seeds, then fry for another minute.
3. Add the spinach, in stages, stirring until the leaves begin to wilt.
4. Stir in the chick peas, butter and season with salt and pepper.
5. Reheat until just bubbling, then serve hot.

Reviews

[Luv2Cook/Hate2Clean:)]

I wasn't too sure about putting cumin in the spinach, although I truly adore cumin in general. I just didn't know how well it would mesh with the spinach. I needn't have worried, though. It was actually the ingredient that I believe pulled together the spinach and the chickpeas. Dh wasn't overly excited about it, but he ate it. He just said it was okay. I loved it, but there aren't very many spinach recipes that I'm not crazy about, lol. I'll definitely do this one again. We had it with Spaghetti-Pizza Casserole, and they went very well together. Interestingly, some of the Parmesan I sprinkled on the spaghetti got on a few bites of the spinach, and it was really good. I'm thinking that I might be able to get dh and the kids to be a little more accepting of it if I add a little Parmesan in next time. The only other change I made was to do about 4 ½ cups of spinach, just to use up what I had. I really don't think that 3 ½ would have been enough, though.

[Shoga-chan]

I made this last night as a quick side dish with lentil koftes and falafel platter. I left out the chickpeas as the other dishes are filling enough, and used silverbeet (like white-stemmed swiss chard) instead of spinach, and I only had ground cumin, not seeds. still delish and obviously very flexible! I ate the leftovers today for lunch, briefly stir frying with some crumbled feta cheese and an egg, then eating with pita bread. Very good!