After tasting spinach prepared Catalan style in a local tapas restaurant, I tried re-creating it at home as a side dish. Moorish influence on the cuisine of Catalonia, a region in Northeastern Spain that includes Barcelona, results in a combination of sweet and savory elements in dishes. Most of the Catalan spinach recipes I found online include toasted pine nuts and golden raisins. Chef José Andrés has a version made with diced apple. Almonds and orange pieces were used in the spinach I ate at the tapas restaurant.
Ingredients
One orange, peeled and with pith removed, and cut into pieces
2 medium garlic cloves—peeled, smashed, and chopped
1/4 cup pine nuts or slivered almonds
12 to 16 ounces of baby spinach
1 Tbsp olive oil
Cover the raisins with warm water and let them stand until plumped, about 10 minutes. Drain them before adding them to the dish.
Cut a peeled orange into sections.
Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the chopped garlic and cook it for 30 seconds. Add the spinach. Sauté for 3 minutes until it’s wilted, stirring it now and then. Note: If you have mature spinach instead of tender baby spinach, you should steam it before putting it in the pan.
Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in raisins, nuts, and orange pieces. Cook 1 to 2 minutes.
Serve immediately.
Serves 2-3 as a side dish.
The victim and suspects in The Tell-Tale Tarte include an actor famed for his one-man Poe show, an author who riffs on Poe stories, a professor who specializes in Poe, and an aspiring writer and Poe lookalike. When café manager Val Deniston serves a tarte Tatin at a book club dinner, the dessert reveals a fraud, embroiling her and her grandfather in the investigation of a murder. The search for the killer takes Val and Granddad to the home of a bestselling author, Rick Usher. Stranded there by an ice storm, they spend a harrowing night in the “House of Usher.” Then, in the shadow of Poe’s tomb, they try to prevent another murder and mete out some POE-etic justice.
Themes that Poe explored in his writing emerge in The Tell-Tale Tarte: guilt, vengeance, and even burial alive. The book offers a solution to real real-life mystery–the identity of the elusive Poe toaster, who, annually for decades, left roses and cognac at Poe’s grave on his birthday, January 19th.
