I’m throwing out a challenge for your taste buds.
Try something different – try something slightly Greek – and I guarantee* that you’ll love it.
This is one of my favorite meals in the vast collection of my family’s recipes – it is beautiful, delicious, and is a unique taste that you’ll crave incessantly.
It’s Greek name is fun. Are you ready?
Hirino Spanaki Me Selino Avgolemono
(Or, as Chris calls it, Hiroshima Nagasaki.)
Okay. Let’s try again, in English this time:
Pork and Spinach with Egg and Lemon Sauce
Better?
Now look how beautiful it is:
Okay. I eat approximately three times that portion size, but it had to be pretty for the photo.
If you like lemon, spinach, and fantastically tender pork, you’ll love this recipe. And if you don’t like one or more of those things, this recipe will convince you that you do.
Here are the ingredients:
2.5 lbs lean pork, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
6 tbsp Olive Oil
2 cups Finely Chopped Onions
3 cups Water
1 tsp Cornstarch
20 oz Frozen Chopped Spinach, thawed and drained in a collander
3 Eggs
3 Lemons
Yellow Rice (this is what I use)
And here’s what to do with those ingredients:
1. Pat the pork completely dry, then season with salt and pepper.
2. Heat the olive oil in skillet over high heat until a light haze forms above it. Add the pork and brown it, turning cubes frequently until they color deeply and evenly on all sides.
(Not it’s prettiest stage.)
3. Remove the pork from the pan and set it aside. Add the onions to the remaining juices, stirring frequently. Cook for five minutes, or until they are soft and transparent.
4. Pour water in and bring to a boil, then return the pork to the pan, coating it evenly with the onion mixture. Reduce the heat, and allow it to simmer for as long as you can – up to an hour and a half (the longer it simmers, the more tender the pork will become.)
5. If there is still a good deal of liquid in the pan, add cornstarch to the above and cook until thickened. If the broth is already thickened, skip the cornstarch.
6. Add in the spinach and simmer for a few more minutes.
The following steps are to make the Egg and Lemon Sauce, which is a common ingredient to many Greek Recipes. This sauce is excellent over potatoes, chicken soup, or beef.
7. Separate the egg whites and yellows, and juice the lemons.
8. Beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Add yellows and mix.
9. Add some hot broth from the pan to your lemon juice, then slowly add the lemon juice and broth to the eggs while the mixer is running on low.
10. Turn off the heat under the pork and spinach and add egg mixture to the top.
11. Gently fold the egg mixture into the spinach and pork.
12. Serve over yellow rice.
* No actual guarantee is offered or implied.
…But I promise that you WILL love this dish. And if you don’t, I’ll come eat it for you.
I am really looking forward to trying this! It looks gorgeous on the plate, and sounds delicious. Thanks for sharing! Totally goes along with my new goal of trying new foods and flavors. You are such a supportive friend, and you didn’t even know it!
Excellent! I hope you guys love it! Be sure to report back!
I have added this to my Pepperplate app (the only meal planning app I have found that I actually like) and I am going to make it this weekend!
I wonder if I could do the pork in a slow cooker for a weeknight meal . . .
I bet so! You would just put everything in but the spinach and egg and lemon sauce, then add the spinach while you’re making the sauce.
Wow, that looks really good! I wonder if I could get the husband to eat the spinach and onions. I know my girls would try it…him not so much. :P
Ha! If it helps, you can tell him that my husband LOVES it.
This looks yummy! And I have everything I’d need….except the rice. I have basmati and brown. Would it be blasphemy to use one of those?
I think either would work just fine!
That looks so yummy! I am definitely sharing this since my sis-in-law has gone gluten free.
We add crumbled F
Agh! Hit submit early. Anyway… We add crumbled feta on top. You’ll thank me later for that little tip. (or condemn me for the now-mandatory extra dose of calories).
Yolk. The yellow part is called a yolk. Obviously you know this and chose to call it a “yellow” just to drive nuts your readers!!
Yes. And it worked. :-)
Guess what we had for supper last night? Well, sort of. I had no pork so used beef instead, and I’ve never even heard of yellow rice… Actually that’s impressive since I keep seven or eight different varieties of rice on hand at all times (including red)!
The other big change was that I simply had to cook/bake it after adding the egg. Raw egg is not big around here at all; my husband simply wouldn’t have eaten it knowing that it wasn’t cooked. Then again, my father-in-law IS the guy who cooked his sashimi in Japan. I hope my extra cooking isn’t on that level of cultural transgressions!
Even so it was absolutely delicious – will definitely make it again!
I think that is totally fine. Eggs gross me out altogether if I think too much about them, so I don’t.
I’m glad y’all enjoyed it!
This is going on my menu for next week, it looks sooo good!
Excellent! Let me know how it goes!
I’m super excited to try this. Adding the ingredients to my shopping list now…
This looks amazing… I have some pork chops in the freezer that are looking for a job, and I think this fits the bill. Also I have a ton of fresh spinach, which I suspect will sub in just fine.
I am confused by what you mean by “non-seasoned” yellow rice. In the pics, it LOOKS like saffron rice, which usually comes in the little yellow metallic bags, but that stuff is definitely seasoned. I absolutely love saffron rice, and it would kind of make sense in a Greek dish. Can you clarify what you mean?
Yes, it’s the gold bags. I mean not the mexican rices with the peppers and all mixed in. Does that make sense?
OH! This makes much more sense – and i know those gold bags! This would be awesome with saffron rice!! It was delicious with jasmine rice, btw, but the saffron rice would be even better! Hmmm, next time…. :)
Thanks for the yummy recipe!
I made this tonight, and it was super yummy. I think it was a little too soupy, though, so next time I will boil off more of the broth. I used fresh spinach instead of frozen (had some in the fridge that needed to be used), and I used about 10 oz total. I made about 2/3 of a recipe. My husband said it had too much spinach for him, but he just gave me some of his spinach and he ate some of my meat, so it all worked out. :) Thanks for the recipe Rachel!
Excellent! The fresh spinach was probably more juicy than the frozen, since I drain the frozen.
Finally got around to trying this and love it! My fiance loves it too so we will definitely be making it again. Thanks so much for sharing the recipe!
Oh that’s great! I’m glad y’all liked it!