How to Cook Spinach

How to Cook Spinach How to Cook Spinach There is no denying the nutritional value of spinach. In the olden days, there was only one method for cooking spinach which involved boiling the spinach in a pot of water. Although this method gave you good enough spinach which was decently tasty when you added pepper, salt and butter, but you ended up losing all the nutritional content of spinach by boiling. You could of course consider Popeye as your ideal and consume raw spinach but it may not exactly be quite palatable. Spinach in fact, gives you a good dose of iron, beta-carotene, folic acid, calcium, Vitamin K and lots of fiber. When so many nutrients are at stake, we must know how to cook spinach well, so that it can be tasty and will retain its nutritional value too.

Blanching – Wash the spinach well to remove dirt from it and discard the stems after cutting them. The stems need not be eaten. Just like the olden days, you can put the spinach in boiling water, allow it to boil for just a minute, and then take them out. This will cook the leaves and make them crisp but will not get rid of the nutrients. If you boil it for longer, it will turn soggy and will lose the nutrients too. For making the spinach taste better, you can immerse it in cold water after taking the leaves out from the boiling water. This will stop the leaves from getting cooked any further in the heated condition. Keep the spinach as hot or cold as you want to.
Steaming – The above method is good if you want to serve your spinach cold. But if you want it hot, then it is better to steam it. Arrange for a vegetable steamer. Cooking in this steamer will help you to control the crispness and the freshness of the spinach. You will be able to master doing this after a couple of trial runs. Usually, a pound of spinach should be steamed for about 2 minutes. You will know that the spinach have been cooked right when they wilt but are still green in color. You can serve the spinach hot with meat and chicken dishes.
Frying – If you are out to prepare a tasty appetizer and are not worried about preserving the nutrients, then nothing can be better than frying the spinach. You can fry the spinach as it is in vegetable oil till it is very crisp. You can also dip it in mayonnaise and fry it which will really give you a very tasty item to eat. Fried spinach can be really tasty but beware that you will have no nutrients left in it.
Cooking with Garlic – Instead of frying spinach as it is or dipping it in mayonnaise and frying it, you can try something different. Chop some garlic and stir fry in sunflower oil for some time in a pan. Cook over medium heat and add the fresh spinach leaves. Fry for a few more minutes before serving the dish hot. If you like the taste of ginger, then you can also chop some and add it to the garlic while stir frying it at first.

If you love spinach as it is, then you can have it in the form of a salad too. Base your salad on spinach leaves and savor the taste. You can also chop spinach finely and add to it to an omelet. In fact, you can experiment in many more ways and love eating spinach in any way that you want.