As I have already shared with you my huge(!) harvesting of home grown Malabar Spinach (Vine Spinach or Pui Shak পুঁই শাক) , today I am going to share you today how I cooked it. Basically, you can cook any spinach or leafy veggies with the same recipe.

There are two parts of this hearty leafy goodness – the crunchy stem and the glossy leaves. Trim the leaves and stems and keep them separately. Wash them if needed, but gently as the leaves tends to get bruised easily. It is fairly easy to cook the leaves, but the stems need time to get cooked.

We basically need onion, garlic, salt, chili and oil. That’s it! I know it sounds simple, but trust me, if you taste this dish once, you definitely gonna fell in love with it.

Cut the stems small, slice onion and garlic. Warm your favorite vegetable oil in a pan. Put garlic slices first, that will bring a loads of flavor to your spinach dish.

Once its starts bubbling and the garlic are slightly reddish, pour your thickly sliced onion in the pan. Fry them until golden. You can add your chili here at this point. It will help in spreading the pungency all over your dish.

After sautéing onions til golden and soft, add the stems. Fry them a little bit so it soaks up all the flavors from onion and garlic. Now add salt and 100ml of water, because we need to cook the stems really nice until they are soft.

It will take a few minutes to cook the stems. It will release some of its own water, so you need to cook it until all the waters are gone and stems change color. You know the stems are done when they are softer and oil starts to get separated.

Now its time to add the chopped leaves. I have sliced them thin, but there’s no rules actually. You can chop them any way you like or not chop them at all!

Usually they contain lots of water, so you don’t need to add any extra water at this point. It’s always so funny to see how the spinach shrinks and you end up with a table spoon of spinach left in your pan after cooking them! (I wish I could add a laughing emoji here!)

So the pan is full of spinach now, and it is important that you turn heat to low and cover the pan with lid. After a while, you will see the spinach are lessening in volume, At this point take out the cover and start stirring them. You need to stir and fry them good until they starts getting darker in color and you will see the oils are getting separated, as you are seeing in the picture. Stir them until the consistency you like, check the salt and when it is done, turn off heat and serve the delicious spinach with rice or flat bread (ruti).

Recipe: 5 Serving Prepping time: 10 minutes, Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients: 250 gram of Malabar Spinach with stems 2 cloves of garlic 1 Large Onion Spice and Condiments 20ml Vegetable Oil 1 tsp fine Salt 2-3 Green Chili (optional)

Instructions: 1. Slice onions and garlic first. Cut the Spinach stem in small pieces and chop the leaves. Keep the stems and leaves separately. 2. Warm oil in a pan and saute garlic first until they are reddish. 3. Add onions and fry them until golden. 4. Add stems in the pan, fry them for a minute or two to incorporate them with all the flavors. 4. Add 100ml water and cook the stems until they are softer, brighter in color and waters are evaporated. 5. Add chopped leaves and cover the pot with lid. Keep them in low heat until the leaves are lessen in volume. 6. Stir them until spinach looks darker in color and oil starts to get separated from the spinach. 7. Turn of heat and take them out of stove. Serve the spinach with rice or ruti!