Afghan Spinach Appetizer Dip

Submitted by Andtototoo

"This recipe came from an Afghanistan cookbook, that I think came out in the 1990's (from Minnesota). I don't remember the title, but their recipes were very good."

 

• Ready In: 40mins
• Ingredients: 10
• Serves: 4

ingredients

• 1 bunch fresh spinach
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 2 teaspoons garlic, minced
• 1⁄4 cup corn oil
• 2 cups plain yogurt
• 1⁄8 teaspoon cayenne powder
• 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
• 1⁄4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1⁄2 teaspoon ground coriander
• pita bread

directions

1. Wash the spinach several times to remove any sand, and finely chop.
2. Put water into a medium-size saucepan until it comes up about 1" from the bottom of the pan.
3. Add the spinach and boil over high heat for five minutes.
4. Drain.
5. In a large frying pan, over medium-high heat, put the oil and onion.
6. Stir-fry until the onion is tender, adding the garlic the last couple of minutes.
7. Add the cooked spinach and cook for 5 more minutes.
8. Turn off heat and let cool.
9. In a serving bowl mix together the yogurt, spinach mixture, cayenne, salt, pepper and ground coriander.
10. Refrigerate overnight.
11. The mixture needs to sit for a while in the fridge so that the flavors can marry.
12. Serve with pita bread or naan.

Reviews

[cm2530]

This is a really good recipe, thanks! And everyone I served it to at a dinner party loved it. I substituted olive oil, and also farmer's cheese rather than yogurt. I strongly recommend the farmer's cheese (i.e., homemade cottage cheese type thing) - yogurt would have been way, way, way too runny. Farmers cheese gave it the perfect texture, and reminded me very much of a dish I ate regularly in villages once upon a time when hiking Pakistan's Himalayan and Hindu Kush mountains. My other major comment/correction on this is that "bunch" of spinach is way too vague - it was totally unclear to me how much spinach I needed. I chopped all the onions, and then after preparing what I thought was a generous quantity of spinach, I still had more onions than cooked spinach! I used a lot less onions and sort of eyeballed all the ingredients after that. Like I said, it turned out great but be prepared to improvise on the proportions.