I’ve just come back from a long two month trip to India. I love Indian food but I got very homesick for food from home. I particularly missed olive oil. I dreamt of lashings of olive oil in – salads, hummus, babaganoush, tabouli and in particular this dish – Greek spinach and rice, which was one of the last meals I made before I left on my trip. When I got back it was one of the first meals I made and it was just as good as I remembered and dreamed of.

There are a lot of recipes out there for Greek spinach and rice, this one comes from a new cookbook – Philoxenia – a seat at my table – a beautiful book on Greek home cooking, by Kon Karapanagiotidis and his mum Sia. Kon is founder and director of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in Melbourne. He is one of those excellent, big hearted, generous people that make the world a better and lighter place.

I’ve followed Kon on Instagram for years on his handle Halloumi Tracksuit , which was devoted to the worship of fried halloumi in all its forms. His basic food philosophy seems to be when in doubt add more olive oil. I found when cooking Greek food this usually works. The best of Greek food is a perfect balance of olive oil, lemon and salt. I love this simple dish for the lashings of olive oil but also the hypercharge of chlorophyll from the copious amount of herbs and greens. I usually use English Spinach for its slightly melting quality but you can use silver beet or experiment with other garden foraged greens.

I like to eat this as a complete meal so the feta sprinkled on top is not really optional but these crispy roasted chickpeas are very, very good as a rice topping and will make it a complete vegan meal.

Spinach and dill rice

Adapted from Philoxenia – a seat at my table by Kon and Sia Karapanagiotidis

• 120 mls extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling (This is optional, but not really)
• 1 brown onion, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 large leek (finely chopped)
• 1 1/2 – 2 bunches of English spinach (roughly chopped)
• 3/4 cup of medium grain rice (Do not use long grain rice, it won’t work!)
• 2-3 spring onions
• 1 cup of water
• 1/2 cup of flat leaf parsley (Chopped)
• 1/2 cup of dill (chopped)
• salt and pepper to taste
• juice of 1 1/2 lemons
• 50-100g Greek feta (Optional)

1. Heat 4 tablespoons of oil in a large pan. Saute onion and sugar on medium heat for about 2 minutes. Add leek and saute until softened (about 3 minutes). Add spinach and the rest of olive oil, reduce heat, cover and for about 3-4 minutes until spinach is wilted.
2. Stir through rice and cook for another 3 minutes. Add spring onions and saute for another minute.
3. Add water, bring to a boil. Cover and cook on low heat for 10 minutes.
4. Add dill and parsley. Cover again and cook for another minute.
5. Remove from heat, add lemon juice. Cover pan and set aside to allow flavours to infuse rice to fluff up.
6. Serve with crumbled feta, extra lemon and olive oil juice if desired. Crispy roasted chickpeas are also very good as garnish/ topping.