Spinach chigirtma – Azeri spinach & eggs
This super simple recipe shows just how much flavour can come from basic ingredients, and makes a great emergency meal for late nights when you’ve got hardly anything in but need food fast. This recipe is taken from Silk Roads: A Flavour Odyssey with Recipes from Baku to Beijing by Anna Ansari (£27, DK RED). Photography by Laura Edwards.
Anna says: "My mind has been blown a few times while researching this book. Realising that the Chinese word for spinach – bocai – which I have known for decades, means “Persian vegetable” is one of them. The “bo” in bocai refers to Bolinguo, an archaic designation for ancient Persia, from whence spinach originated. Oh – and the Western European words for spinach (e.g., epinard, espinaca, spinaci) are all derived from esfanaj, the Persian word for spinach. That’s some iron-heavy etymology right there.
While scholarship has stumbled over the precise date and means of spinach’s transmission from west to east, it is generally accepted that the so-called “chieftain of leafy greens” (as spinach was dubbed by the 12th-century Arab Andalusian agriculturalist Ibn al-’awwãm) arrived in China, in seed form, from Iran via Nepal in the middle of the 7th century CE. Special and rare enough to be sent as tribute from the Nepalese king to the Tang Court in Chang’an, spinach is now a mainstay on tables across the world. Including mine. This is but one of a few spinach recipes in this book, a testament to both the versatility of the leafy green and its ubiquity in the culinary traditions of the regions we are exploring.
Serve with bread and cheese, or enjoy as part of a brunch spread."
Ingredients
Metric
Imperial
- 4 eggs
- 1 tsp fine sea salt
- 3/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 300g of frozen chopped spinach
- 4 tbsp of ghee, or 60g unsalted butter
- 1 onion, finely diced
- flaky sea salt
- Aleppo chilli flakes, or dried chilli flakes
Method
Crack your eggs into a small bowl. Add ½ teaspoon each of salt and pepper, and use a fork to lightly whisk the eggs. Set aside
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
Fill a medium saucepan with water and bring it to the boil over a high heat. Add the spinach and cook for 3 minutes, then drain in a fine mesh sieve
- 300g of frozen chopped spinach
With the back of a wooden spoon, press down on the drained spinach (still in the sieve) to get as much moisture out as possible. Set aside
Melt the ghee or butter in a medium non-stick sauté pan (or a well-seasoned cast-iron pan) for which you have a lid over a medium heat
- 4 tbsp of ghee, or 60g unsalted butter
Add the onion, along with ¼ teaspoon each of the salt and black pepper
- 1 onion, finely diced
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
- 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5–7 minutes, or just long enough for the onion to turn golden brown
Meanwhile, see if you can press down some further on the spinach to get some more liquid out; if it’s cool enough, you can try and squeeze with your (clean) hands. If you can’t get any more liquid out, that’s OK too
Reduce the heat to low, and add the spinach to the browning onions, along with the final ¼ teaspoon of salt. Mix the spinach and onions together well, and cook them for a further 2 minutes, stirring frequently, before flattening out the mixture across the centre of the pan
Add the eggs to the pan, spreading them out evenly across and through the spinach in the centre. Cover the pan and cook until the eggs are set, 6–7 minutes
Transfer to a serving plate and top with flaky sea salt and chilli flakes to taste
- flaky sea salt
- Aleppo chilli flakes, or dried chilli flakes
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