Day 33 - April 15, 2016: Cuttlefish with Spinach - Σουπιές με Σπανάκι

In our many adventures reading through Greek cookbooks and various websites about Greek food, we kept coming across this one recipe that had only a few ingredients, and we thought we should try it.  It just so happened that we had cuttlefish the other day, and we reserved one so we could try this specific recipe.  And, we always have some greens in the fridge, whether it is spinach, rapini, dandelions, or vleeta (amaranth), we always have greens.  Today, we had some Chinese spinach, and we figured that would work fine with our cuttlefish.

This recipe that we are discussing is from a website called All Corfu.com /Corfu Recipes
Corfu is known for much of the seafood, and cuttlefish are easy to come by.  You can make this with squid or cuttlefish, and both will give you a similar result.

For this recipe, you will need the following:

1 cuttlefish, cleaned and cut into pieces
1/4 cup oil
approx. 2 cups spinach, washed
1 onion, chopped
salt, pepper, lemon to taste

Since the cuttlefish was already cleaned and cut into pieces, we are not going to review that process.  Please see our April 6, 2016 entry for instructions on how to clean a cuttlefish.

Start with the cut up pieces of soupies.  Put them in a dry pot on medium heat and cover them.   Allow this to simmer on medium heat for 15 minutes.  Do not put anything in the pan with the soupies.  They will release water all by themselves.

In a separate pan, sauté the onions.  Once the onions become somewhat see through, add the spinach to the pan.  Toss the spinach in the hot onion pan enough so wilt the spinach.  You don't want to cook this  too much -- just wilted.  You can see the dark colour on the spinach; that is how you will know it is done.  Now, season those with salt and pepper.

Next, combine the two pans -- add the spinach and onion to the cuttlefish pan and mix well.  Season with some lemon juice.  Allow the flavours to cook together for about 10 minutes, and serve.  It is light, fresh, and rather simple.  Over a plate of rice or noodles, or even as is, this can be a filling and nutritious dish to enjoy any time of the year.

“As a moth gnaws a garment, so doth envy consume a person.” 

-St. John Chrysostomos
Source of quote: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/4589154.John_Chrysostom