Adventures in cooking: crispy spinach

[eveglass]

One of my favourite treats at Chinese restaurants has always been crispy spinach. The idea is simple: fry spinach leaves until crispy, sweeten with sugar, consume the wonderfulness.

Tonight I thought to myself, "Self, this doesn't seem that hard. And I've got a bag of spinach leaves in the fridge that is invariably gonna go bad. I should try this."

So I did. Put some vegetable oil in a pan (it's what I had on hand, and the smoking point is higher than olive oil, which is the only other thing I have on hand), turn it up to high, wait for the oil to get nice and hot.

Problem #1: "High" is too high for vegetable oil on my stove. Solution: turn down to 6.

Problem #2: How the heck long do you put in the spinach? It took me a few tries to figure out the answer, but eventually I did: keep it in the oil until you just start to see a few brown spots, then take it out. This was actually tougher to figure out than you might think, since the spinach doesn't actually look crispy while it's in the oil. But the "until the first traces of brown appear" seems to be a good working guideline.

Problem #3: Oil splatters. Well, duh. I've made enough latkas to know that one. But still, lots of splattering oil = unhappy Julies. Solution: buy an apron. (I'll get there. I promise.)

Problem #4: What the heck to do with the leftover frying oil? Somehow, pouring it down the drain just doesn't seem smart. Oh gurus of cooking, help please! What do I do with a few tablespoons of used frying oil after I'm done frying?

All told, though, it came out quite well. I'll probably do it again. After I get an apron and figure out what to do with the oil, that is.

Comments

[joenotcharles.livejournal.com]

Pouring it down the sink is fine as long as you wash it down with plenty of hot water.

[bytchearse.livejournal.com]

#2: If you do the leaves a few at a time, they will float within seconds. I love them with salt only :-D

#3: If you have a salad spinner, you can dry the leaves better. Dry spinach leaves = much less spattering

#4: Since you only used the oil for frying spinach, I say let it cool completely and strain it through a coffee filter into a jar or bottle (I did mention cool completely, yes?) for a future stir-fry. Use within a few weeks

[eveglass.livejournal.com]

Cool. Thanks muchly.

#2: Yeah, I noticed that. Actually, I'm using so little oil that "float" isn't the best descriptor, but they're definitely ready in short order.

#3: I don't, alas.

No problem

[bytchearse.livejournal.com]

Bagged spinach still has enough moisture to spatter, as you noticed. If you pat it flat between paper towels that helps.

[scjody.livejournal.com]

You can improvise a salad spinner if you have a colander. Get about 1-2m of string and tie an end onto each handle forming a long loop. Put the spinach in the colander, and whirl over your head. Water goes everywhere, but it's just water, and not very much of it. Works as well as a "real" salad spinner and doesn't take up any additional counter space (plus you can now easily hang your colander to dry rather than have it take up half your drying rack.)

Re: oil, another alternative is to get an old empty can and put the oil in that. Eventually it will cool & you can dump it. Or just keep adding more oil every time you fry stuff. This is more important for grease from cooking meat, which will harden so you really don't want to put it down the drain.

[eveglass.livejournal.com]

I do the "put it in a can" thing for bacon grease (yeah, yeah, bad Jew and all that), but I don't really do enough frying to warrant it for the oil I used tonight.

In terms of the makeshift salad spinner... I suppose it could work. I'm actually using a bag of pre-washed spinach, so there wasn't *all* that much water to begin with, but I'll keep this in mind for when there is.

[smar.livejournal.com]

My mom used to dry lettuce by putting it in a clean pillow case and swinging it round and round :)

Mmm crispy spinach... I will have to try this!

[eveglass.livejournal.com]

A pillow case, you say? How interesting!

[dizietsma.livejournal.com]

For the oil, cool it, filter it and reuse within a week or two. The solids you filtered-out can be used in the construction of bird feeders, if you or someone you know is making them by hand.

[eveglass.livejournal.com]

I would totally do that if I were planning on doing this again in the next week or two. *grin*