Spinach Affair

Spinach *sighs*

This is truly my favorite vegetable, Popeye can go to hell for all I care, nothing can take away my love for this leafy green vegetable! Rowie likes it best when it's stir-fried with garlic, I'd never turn it away for the world! It's cheap, green, delicious...The family thinks I'm weird because I never tire of eating the same dish every night, they wince when they see me dip bread (with garlic/butter) into the spinach sauce, or eat the spinach without rice. I've no idea where my obsession came from, but I'm head over heels in LOVE with it :p

I won't have it in any other way, only homemade spinach does the drooling job for me :p So how do I prepare my favorite dish ever?

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch of spinach (bayam in Malay); I seldom go for baby spinach, way too fine & takes too much time to clean up hehe
• 6-7 pips of garlic; I never stinge on the garlic, me love it!

Procedure:

• Clean the spinach, separate the leaves from the stems.
  
• Chop the garlic finely.
• Use a kuali wok, pour in cooking oil (just enough to accomodate the garlic later, not too much now).
• Heat up the oil & put in the garlic. Do not heat up the oil too much, it'll burn the garlic.
• Stir fry the garlic until before it turns slightly brown, then toss in the stems. You may put half a cube of chicken stock BEFORE putting in the stems but you may opt to use just salt & pepper at the end of cooking.
• Stir fry the stems, add in some water to soften the stems, then toss in the leaves. Stir fry & add water (as much as you'd like, really), allow to simmer until the stems are soft enough.
  
• If you hadn't added the chicken cube, you may add salt & pepper (just a bit) at this point.
  
• Turn off the fire & scoop up the goods.

Additional notes:

• You may toast bread with garlic butter or plain butter, then eat together with the spinach. Delicious :p
• You may use anchovies (ikan bilis) in lieu of chicken stock/salt. Add chilli for color & a lil' bit of heat.

PS Dad made a bowl of stir-fried spinach just for me. I've never been happier :D