Cooking with İkbal: Ispanak

İkbal gave me a cooking lesson a few days ago for making ıspanak. It's a fast, healthy and easy dish to make with mainly spinach and ground beef. And it sure is tasty too!
As many of you know, when I cook I don't usually follow a recipe. I just get out the ingredients required and then season it to taste. Guess what? That's how İkbal cooks too! Thus, I have no measurements in which to advise you on for this recipe. Season it to your own tastes and I'm sure it'll turn out great. Good luck and let me know how it turns out if you try to make it!

Ingredients:

• olive oil
• chopped onions
• "not that much" ground meat of choice (İkbal used beef)
• diced carrots
• tomato paste
• small handful of rice (optional)
  
• fresh spinach, chopped
• salt
• water

In a large pot, heat oil and salt. Add onions.
When the onions are starting to brown, add in the carrots and 2 heaping spoons of tomato paste. Mix well. Add the meat and cook thoroughly. Keep in mind that the meat is not the focus of the dish, the spinach is, so you don't need that much at all. If I had to quantify, I would say no more than 1/2 pound of meat.
Rinse a small handful of rice with water, drain and add to the mixture. Add the spinach into the pot and stir well.
Cover and let simmer until the spinach is tender. Stir occasionally, adding salt for taste.

The liquid from the spinach should cook out into the pot, making it a bit runny.You can add a little bit of water if you want but the dish should be thick, not soupy.
Serve over pasta or rice with a dallop of plain yogurt on top. Yum!

PS. How do we feel about having the pictures imbedded in the blog? I like it for blogs like this, but in general, I'm not a fan. Especially if there are a lot of pictures. Your opinion?

© Connie Hum 2009