You can spin this wonderful side dish in so many ways: add more pine nuts or raisins; use a lot of garlic, adding some at the end, so that it stays strong; add a dried chile or two to the olive oil; finish it with fresh lemon juice; or drizzle it with more olive oil at the end. Or serve it over pasta, thinned with some of the pasta-cooking liquid. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: Chard is great; collards, kale, and dandelions are also good. Just make sure the initial simmering time is long enough to make the green (and its stems) fully tender; nothing is as fast as spinach.

　　

Ingredients

makes 4 servings

　　1/4 cup raisins or currants

　　1 pound fresh spinach, large stems removed

　　1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

　　1 teaspoon minced garlic

　　1/4 cup pine nuts

　　Salt and black pepper to taste

　　

Step 1

Soak the raisins or currants in warm water for 10 minutes while you prepare the spinach. Steam or parboil the spinach until tender, less than 5 minutes.

　　

Step 2

When the spinach is cool enough to handle, squeeze all the excess moisture from it; chop it roughly. Put the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden, about 3 minutes. Add the spinach and raise the heat to medium-high. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 2 minutes. Drain the raisins and add them, along with the pine nuts, to the pan. Reduce the heat to medium.

　　

Step 3

Cook, stirring occasionally, for another 3 or 4 minutes, until everything glistens. Season with salt and pepper and serve hot or at room temperature.

　　The Best Recipes in the World by Mark Bittman. © 2005 by Mark Bittman. Published by Broadway Books. All Rights Reserved.MARK BITTMAN is the author of the blockbuster The Best Recipes in the World (Broadway, 2005) and the classic bestseller How to Cook Everything, which has sold more than one million copies. He is also the coauthor, with Jean-Georges Vongerichten, of Simple to Spectacular and Jean-Georges: Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef. Mr. Bittman is a prolific writer, makes frequent appearances on radio and television, and is the host of The Best Recipes in the World, a 13-part series on public television. He lives in New York and Connecticut.