Spinach & Peanut Salad
老醋菠菜花生
Chinese cooking can do magic things to vegetables. Here, the humble spinach leaf is blanched and dressed with a few simple ingredients and transformed far from that watery pile of grass that haunted my childhood dinner times.
This dish can be thrown together in minutes when you quickly need a veg dish on the table. There’s a punch from the garlic, crunch from the peanuts, warmth from the dried chilli and a biscuity hint from the sesame oil.
I’ll give you the authentic, skin-on, fried peanut option here which gives the richest, almost buttery flavour, but feel free to speed up the dish by using pre-roasted peanuts.
Serves 2, as a side.
Ingredients
300g spinach leaves - roots and thick stems trimmed.
2 big cloves garlic - finely diced/minced
1 tablespoon black vinegar
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon sugar
70g peanuts (raw, skin on)
2 tablespoons of oil.
3-4 dried chillis
Method
In a wok, heat 2 tablespoons of peanut oil and then fry the peanuts until they’re a rich, reddy brown colour. Then transfer the peanuts onto a paper towel to drain. After a minute or so, add to a bowl, add a pinch of salt and toss the nuts.
Fill another bowl with water and ice next to your saucepan. Rinse the spinach, then add to a saucepan on a medium heat, leaving the leaves wet. Put the lid on the pan, and let the spinach wilt for about 15-20 seconds. Then turn the leaves so the top leaves are now near the bottom, then put the lid on again for another 15-20 seconds. Once wilted and just cooked, remove the spinach leaves and drop into the iced water.
Collect up the spinach and squeeze it to release as much water as possible, then roughly chop the veg into pieces (they don’t need to be too small) and transfer to a mixing bowl.
Make the dressing: combine the vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil and sugar to a small bowl and whisk together.
Break the dried chillis in half, add them to the spinach along with the diced garlic. Add the peanuts, and finally the dressing. Toss together with chopsticks and serve.
