We go to the farmers’ market on Sundays. Nothing fancy, just good wholesome meat, some cheese, eggs, bread (which always costs more than you’d expect), fruit, and vegetables as they should be: beets, carrots and radishes with dirt and leaves still on them, English spinach with big leaves and big flavour, leeks and bunches of chard. I always buy too much. By Thursday all the leaves in the fridge will have to be thrown away and the eggs will no longer be farm-fresh, so on Wednesday evening my thrifty wife charges through the fridge and picks them all out – the tops from carrots, beets and radishes, whatever is left of the chard and spinach, and all the herbs in the house – before they wilt. She gives them a good wash and a chop, and stews them all in olive oil. Once all the leaves are tender and their liquid has gone, the eggs go on top.
Serves 2 for breakfast, lunch or dinner
Time: 15 minutes
Photography: Patricia Niven
Season: Winter/Spring
Ingredients
3 tbsp olive oil
1 small leek, sliced into rings and washed
100g spinach, washed (you can use any green leaf you have here: chard, kale, beets, radish tops, etc.)
1 small bunch of parsley, roughly chopped
1 small bunch of mint, leaves picked and roughly chopped
1 small bunch of dill, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
4 eggs
a few dollops of yogurt (optional)
a sprinkling of sumac (optional)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Method
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Heat the olive oil in a frying pan (I use a 22-cm frying pan) on a medium-high heat. Add the leek and sauté to soften – it will take 3–4 minutes – then start adding the spinach, a large handful at a time. Stir between each addition to wilt it. It may seem as if it will never fit in the pan, but as it wilts there will be hardly any volume left. Finally add the chopped herbs and mix them in to wilt too. The whole process will take about 6–8 minutes, depending on the leaves you are using; just make sure they are soft by the end of it.
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Remove the frying pan from the stove and season with the crushed garlic and some salt and pepper. You can set this aside until you are ready to eat and the table is set; it will also keep in the fridge until later.
You only want to cook the eggs once everyone is at the table, as it is best to eat this while the yolks are still runny. -
Heat the spinach mixture again and use a spoon to create four little wells in the cooked leaves, one in each quarter. Crack an egg into each well, season the eggs with a touch of salt and pepper and cover the pan.
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Cook on a low heat until the whites are set but the yolks are still runny – about 3–4 minutes. Serve straight away. You can drizzle with some yogurt and sumac or serve it as is. It’s delicious either way.
Read more: Honey & Co At Home
The Honeys are known for their seasonal, punchy Middle Eastern cooking and for every dish, they always have a great story. In this cookbook they guide you through simple, hearty recipes to bring those flavours into your own kitchen. Recipe taken from Honey & Co At Home: Middle Eastern recipes from our kitchen by Sarit Packer & Itamar Srulovich (Pavilion Books). Photography by Patricia Niven.
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