This dish reminded me (once again) why I love to cook so much. It doesn’t have to be complicated with a million of ingredients whose names you can’t even pronounce and doesn’t have to be so time consuming that you agonize to see 3 hours of work vanish in 3 minutes. You can make a lot with minimal ingredients and still create an epicure-worthy dish. Burmese style spinach (suited to what was available in my pantry, of course) is a great side dish that you can have up your sleeve. It uses fundamental ingredients, and the best of all, it develops flavour like nobody else’s business in less than 15 minutes and I mean it.

If you read the recipe you may notice that this isn’t something novel, but rather a different way of preparing spinach. It is tender, yet ever so slightly crunchy, drenched with an umami sauce starring crispy ginger, garlic and fish sauce (which I substituted below), and with the addition of shrimp floss, you can turn this into an authentic experience from Burma.

Side dish spotlight

Serves one:

• 3-4 cups of rinsed spinach leaf (keep the tender stems, chop off the woody ones)
• 2-3 tbsp. sesame oil
• 6-7 cloves of garlic
• 1 inch ginger
• 1 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1/2 tbsp. brown sugar
• 1 tsp. chili flakes
• Water
• Salt
• Pepper

Blanch the spinach in boiling water for about 1 minute until the stems are just cooked. Shock with cold water and dry. Finely chop the ginger and garlic. Heat some sesame oil in a pan. Add the ginger and garlic and sauté on a low flame until golden brown. Add the soy sauce and brown sugar, thinning with water if needed. After about a minute, add the chili flakes and season with salt and pepper. Allow to reduce slightly on a low flame for about a minute before removing from the heat. Season the blanched spinach with salt and pepper. Spoon the sauce over the spinach.