Stir-Fried Garlic Spinach - the Pinnacle of Yum

This spinach has earned a permanent place in my kitchen repertoire. It's so tasty, so fast and so easy that I just can't quit it. Not that I'd ever want to quit it...

It comes by way of Grace Young's lovely cookbook, The Breath of a Wok, which my husband gave me as a gift after we returned from a trip to Southeast Asia what feels like a lifetime ago (we were so young...)

I've been making Auntie Yi's Stir-Fried Garlic Spinach ever since. It's so easy that I always feel a little like I'm cheating somehow. The seasoning is incredibly simple - a tablespoon of rice mirin mixed with equal parts sugar and salt.

There are just two things that you need to do to make this a truly stand-out dish:

1. Use really fresh, flavorful spinach - it makes a huge difference in the taste.

2. Get your wok (or wide, flat-bottomed pan if you don't have a wok) really, really hot and don't crowd the spinach. If you want to make more than one bunch of spinach, do it in two batches to ensure you can really stir-fry it effectively.

When I saw the first spinach of the season from Taliaferro Farms in the produce section of my health food store last week, looking all gorgeous and tender and a practically radioactive shade of green that only occurs in the spring, I knew this would be on the menu.

A little washing and drying, chopping, mixing and stir-frying and BOOM, we were in business.

As always, it was SO GOOD!

Stir-Fried Garlic Spinach minimally adapted from Grace Young's excellent book The Breath of a WokServes 4 as a side

Ingredients

Directions

1. Heat a 14-inch flat bottomed wok over high heat until a bead of water vaporizes within 1 to 2 seconds of contact. Swirl in the oil, add the garlic and stir-fry for 10 seconds.

2. Add all the spinach and stir-fry for 10 seconds.

3. Add the salt, sugar and rice wine and stir-fry for 1-2 minutes or until the spinach is just tender but still bright green. Garnish with the sesame seeds (if you like them, that is) and serve.

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