Wilted Spinach with Garlic and Lemon
A garlic-oil pan of greens for the second night out, before the fresh stuff gives up.
- calories
- 330
- weight
- 4.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 73
- protein
- 4 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 6 min
- total time
- 11 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Grill grate
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Young spinach, whole clusters | 3 oz | stems on, trimmed at the root end |
|---|---|---|
| Garlic | 1 large clove | sliced thin at home, carried in a film can |
| Neutral oil | 2 tbsp | canola or sunflower, high smoke point |
| Olive oil | 2 tbsp | finishing, in a dropper bottle |
| Lemon | 1/2 | cut into wedges, or 1 tbsp bottled juice |
| White wine | 1 tbsp | boxed wine or a splash of broth from a bouillon cube |
| Salt | to taste |
Method
- Trim the root ends off the spinach and shake out any grit. Keep the clusters whole if the stems are thin. If they are thick, cut the stems off in a bunch and cook them first.
- Warm the neutral oil in a wide pan over medium with the sliced garlic. Pull it off the heat the moment the slices go gold. Burnt garlic is bitter and there is no fixing it.
- Pile in the spinach and add the tablespoon of wine. Cover if you have a lid. Thirty to sixty seconds is enough for young leaves.
- Salt it, drizzle the olive oil over, squeeze the lemon on at the last second.
- Eat it out of the pan. It shrinks to almost nothing, so this is two small sides, not two dinners.
Spinach stems are food, not trash. Left whole, a young cluster cooks like a small vegetable: the stem holds some snap while the leaves collapse. Older spinach with thick stems needs a head start, so cut the stems off as a bunch, give them a minute in the pan, then throw the leaves on at the end.
The garlic oil is the whole dish. Toast the slices slowly in a neutral oil that can take the heat, then kill the flame before they darken past gold. The good olive oil and the lemon go on off-heat, where they still taste like themselves. This is cooler food, not backpacking food — fresh greens hold two days at best, so cook it early in the trip.
Packing
Slice the garlic at home. Spinach goes in a hard container in the cooler or it turns to slime under a stove. Wine rides in a small bottle; a bouillon cube works in its place and weighs nothing.
Variations
- Skip the wine and use a splash of water. It steams the same, it just tastes flatter.
- Stir in a foil packet of tuna or a handful of couscous and it becomes a meal instead of a side.
- A pinch of chili flake in the garlic oil is worth carrying.
https://foragerchef.com/eating-the-whole-spinach