A mother-daughter conversation on food and cooking (mostly)

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Spinach Rice Thing

Our subject tonight is in the back of this picture, behind the beets and the chicken.

It's hard for me to name this dish because I can't decide whether the rice or the spinach is the base ingredient. It's originally from Mireille Johnston's Cuisine of the Sun, with some modifications...she calls it Fada Riquet. But around here, Spinach Rice Thing it is.

Fill a large saucepan or small Dutch oven 1/2 full with water and bring to a boil.

Add 1/2 cup dry rice and simmer uncovered for 15 minutes.

Add 1/2 pound of fresh spinach -- or 1 large (9 oz) bag -- and boil for 10 more minutes. Drain everything thoroughly.

Return to pan and heat over medium-low until hot (pretty much just to make the eggs safe):

-2 eggs
-1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (or more if, unlike me, you did not somehow acquire a container of nuclear nutmeg. The stuff is intense.)
-4 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
-salt
-pepper
-1 tablespoon olive oil (stir in at end)

This is so warm and comforting and awesome. And it's great left over.

I contributed a large batch to a recent potluck at work. For a crowd, I quadrupled the recipe, but for spinach I used 1 big bag of fresh spinach and 3 10-oz packages of frozen spinach. I only used 6 eggs. It was tasty.

3 comments:

Kris said...

I am so limited by using only brown rice--it's hopeless in pilafs and such. It might work in this, though, if I modify the initial boiling time.

I'm curious--did your co-workers like this?

Eva said...

Shockingly, yes -- it has a comforting flavor that's pretty universally appealing.

I'm sure brown rice would work here. It's the eggs that give the dish its fluff, not the rice. Let me know how it works!

Kris said...

I never did get around to making this. I'm going to make it in the camper next week. We're going to be in Albuquerque for our 42nd anniversary.