Spanakorizo (Spinach and Rice Cooked in the Spinach Water)

Variations

• Prasorizo: leeks instead of spinach. Leeks give up far less liquid, so more hot water goes in and this dish's particular trick applies much less.
• With tomato: in the Peloponnese a grated tomato goes in and turns it red. Tomato brings water of its own, so pour in less.
• Bulgur or trahana instead of rice: bulgur cooks faster, so the spinach goes in later.
• Eaten cold: many Greek cooks rate it better the next day at room temperature. Chilled, the olive oil stiffens and dulls it, so give it a fresh pour before serving.
• Same leaf as horta, a different aim: horta boils tough wild greens for twenty minutes to talk their bitterness down; this barely wilts tender spinach. Only the oil and the lemon are shared.

Tips

• The ratios in cooking rice are all ratios of a liquid you pour in. That guide gathers the dishes that cook rice in something other than water — coconut milk, stock, the water lentils were boiled in — because "a cup of the liquid is not a cup of water." It puts it as "several dishes here cook rice in something that is not water — where three quantities change at once, not one." Every one of those, though, is measured before it goes in the pot. Spanakorizo breaks that premise: the liquid comes out of the spinach, and how much depends on the spinach. So the order reverses — wilt first, look at what has gathered, then add the rice. The only number a recipe can honestly give is the final level, not the pour.
• One other dish breaks the same premise, and what follows differs. Lo bak go adds no water either — "Cooked covered, that water comes out and pools in the pan, and it is what hydrates the flour — so the ratio cannot be measured from a jug." That much is shared. What differs is the job the liquid has. There the water hydrates a flour batter that then sets, so too little only makes it stiff and you can judge it by eye as you mix. Here the water is an amount a grain has to absorb, and too little leaves a chalky core you cannot go back and fix. So that dish adds its flour last, and this one tops the level up with hot water first.
• A kilo of spinach is not a misprint. A leaf vegetable is mostly water and its volume is mostly air. Wilted, it comes down to a couple of handfuls, and the volume that disappeared is sitting in the bottom of the pan. It is supposed to look absurd going in.
• Not wringing it out is a different reason again from horta's. Horta does not squeeze because "Hot leaves absorb oil; cooled ones only carry it on the surface.", while sigeumchi namul must be wrung out, since "it uses very little sesame oil, so leftover water makes the seasoning slide off." Spanakopita squeezes hardest of all — "Squeeze the spinach really dry so the pie doesn't turn soggy." All three decide by what the leftover water would spoil.** Here it spoils nothing, because it is the cooking liquid.
• Give up on green here too. Fifteen minutes under a lid takes the colour to olive, exactly as blanching describes. It is horta's calculation again — "Horta that arrives bright green is undercooked." Holding the spinach back to keep it bright would mean not having its liquid to cook the rice in, so it is colour or method, and this dish picked method.
• The lemon goes in off the heat. Acid slows starch taking up water, and rice cooked in it keeps a chalky core however long you wait. Added at the end there is no such problem. The dill goes in at the same moment for a different reason: it is on the delicate side of fresh herbs, and long cooking takes its aroma out.
• Do not stir it. Stirring frees the surface starch and pulls it towards risotto. What this wants is not creaminess but grains that stay grains while becoming one body with the spinach.
• Cutting the olive oil makes it a different dish. Ladera means "the ones in oil": the oil is standing in for meat that is not there. By the division cooking oils draws, the oil here is not a cooking medium but the substance of the thing.