This dish is inspired by a Croatian dish called blitva, which is swiss chard with minced garlic and potatoes. Very easy to cook, and you can eat a lot of spinach in one serving.
A Fond Memory from Croatia
In my visit to Croatia, I had a grilled whole sea bream in a very popular restaurant called Villa Spiza. The sea bream was of course delicious, but what I have always missed was that side dish, blitva (Swiss chard).
Swiss chard’s colourful stems are hard to be missed. And from what I’ve eaten, there is strong evidence that the suppose-to-be chard was spinach. Anyway, tasty on its own, it doesn’t matter much.
A Key Cooking Note
Blitva is rather easy to cook: boil potatoes and Swiss chard in salted water, fry minced garlic in olive oil, add vegetables and stir well to taste.
In the first trial, I didn’t give the spinach ‘a little treatment’, and as a result, the spinach released much water, and the dish turned bland.
After learning my lesson, I first dry-cooked the spinach, released most of the water and drained it; I also swapped olive oil for butter to achieve a richer taste.
Croatian Blitva(ish) Recipe
Blitva is one of my favourite side dishes inspired by what I ate in Croatia. It is very easy to make, taste super good with seafood.
Ingredients
- 250 g baby spinach
- 250 g potatoes, peeled, cut into big chunks
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 10 g butter
- salt and pepper
How To Make
- Boil potatoes in salted water for about 10 mins or until cooked through, set aside.
- Cook spinach in a dry pan, until wilted and released its water, set aside.
- Melt butter in the same pan with low heat, fry garlic until fragrant, then add potatoes and mash part of them.
- Add spinach, salt and pepper for seasoning, everything stir-fry well, serve hot.
More Tasty Spinach Recipes
- Afghan Slow Cooked Spinach
- Salmon Spinach Spaghetti in Forest Sauce
- Smoked Salmon Spinach Spaghetti with Cashew Cream
- 【15 mins】Spinach Radish Miso Soup
- Chickpea and Spinach Coconut Curry
