Recipes
Spinach Chigirtma | Azeri Spinach & Eggs
Author:
Anna Ansari
Servings
2-4
Prep Time
5 minutes
Cook Time
20 minutes
"My mind has been blown a few times while researching this book. Realizing that the Chinese word for spinach— bocai—which I have known for decades, means “Persian vegetable” is one of them. The “bo” in bocai refers to Bolinguo, an archaic designation for ancient Persia, from whence spinach originated. Oh—and the Western European words for spinach (for example, epinard, espinaca, spinaci) are all derived from esfanaj, the Persian word for spinach. That’s some iron-heavy etymology right there.
While scholarship has stumbled over the precise date and means of spinach’s transmission from west to east, it is generally accepted that the so-called “chieftain of leafy greens” (as spinach was dubbed by the 12th-century Arab Andalusian agriculturalist Ibn al-’awwãm) arrived in China, in seed form, from Iran via Nepal in the middle of the 7th century ce. Special and rare enough to be sent as tribute from the Nepalese king to the Tang Court in Chang’an, spinach is now a mainstay on tables across the world. Including mine. This is but one of a few spinach recipes in this book, a testament to both the versatility of the leafy green and its ubiquity in the culinary traditions of the regions we are exploring.
Serve with bread and cheese, or enjoy as part of a brunch spread."
Excerpted from Silk Roads: A Flavor Odyssey with Recipes from Baku to Beijing © 2025 by Anna Ansari. Used with permission of the publisher, DK Red. All rights reserved. Photographs by Laura Edwards.
Ingredients
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4 eggs
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1 tsp fine sea salt
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¾ tsp freshly ground black pepper
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300g (10oz) frozen chopped spinach
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4 tbsp ghee, or 60g (2oz) unsalted butter
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1 onion, finely diced
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flaky sea salt
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Aleppo chilli flakes or dried chilli flakes
Directions
Crack your eggs into a small bowl. Add ½ teaspoon each of salt and pepper, and use a fork to lightly whisk the eggs. Set aside.
Fill a medium saucepan with water and bring it to the boil over a high heat. Add the spinach and cook for 3 minutes, then drain in a fine mesh sieve.
With the back of a wooden spoon, press down on the drained spinach (still in the sieve) to get as much moisture out as possible. Set aside.
Melt the ghee or butter in a medium non-stick sauté pan (or a well-seasoned cast-iron pan) for which you have a lid over a medium heat. Add the onion, along with ¼ teaspoon each of the salt and black pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5–7 minutes, or just long enough for the onion to turn golden brown.
Meanwhile, see if you can press down some further on the spinach to get some more liquid out; if it’s cool enough, you can try and squeeze with your (clean) hands. If you can’t get any more liquid out, that’s OK too.
Reduce the heat to low, and add the spinach to the browning onions, along with the final ¼ teaspoon of salt. Mix the spinach and onions together well, and cook them for a further 2 minutes, stirring frequently, before flattening out the mixture across the centre of the pan.
Add the eggs to the pan, spreading them out evenly across and through the spinach in the centre. Cover the pan and cook until the eggs are set, 6–7 minutes. Transfer to a serving plate and top with flaky sea salt and chilli flakes to taste.
Recipe Note
Silk Roads: A Flavor Odyssey with Recipes from Baku to Beijing by Anna Ansari is available for purchase here: