Cassell's dictionary of cookery

&C. — Wash the spinach in two or three waters. Pick the leaves from the stalks, drain it, and stew it with as much water only as will keep it from burning. Squeeze the moisture from it, and beat it with a wooden spoon till smooth. Dissolve a slice of fresh butter in a saucepan, put in the spinach, and stir it till it is quite hot and dry. Add pepper and salt and as much boiling milk as will make the sauce of the consistency of thick cream. Stir till smooth, and serve very hot. Time to boil the spinach, about ten minutes. Spinacli Soup. — Wash some freshlygathered young spinach leaves. Shred finely as many as will fill a large basin, and put with them a lettuce, also finel}' shred, and two or three leaves of sorrel. Throw them into boiling water, and let them boil quickly for five or six minutes. Drain them, put them into plenty of cold water to preserve the colour, and squeeze the moisture from them. Dissolve two ounces of butter in a saucepan. Mix it smoothly with a heaped table-spoonful of flour ; add the vegetables gradually, and when they are roughly blended with the water and flour, pour in, little by little, two quarts of boiling water or vegetable stock. Boil all gently together for a quarter of an hour. Put in a quarter of a pint of boiling milk or cream, and pepper and salt, if required, and serve very hot. Time, about an hour. Spinach Soup (another way). — Prepare the spinach as recommended in the article Spinach, Dressed; boil it for about six or seven minutes, press the water out, put it in a stewpan with some butter, a little flour, a small onion, and two or three sprigs of parsley. Fry on the stove for a short time, then add a little good stock, and let the soup simmer slowly for about twenty minutes. Pass it through a fine hair sieve, put it back into the stewpan, add a small pat of butter, a piece of glaze, and a little sugar and salt. Let the soup boil, then serve with small croiitons of fried bread. Spinach Soup (a la Francaise).— Make as much clear stock as will be needed, and put it boiling hot into the tureen. Have ready some spinach boiled in the usual way. Press this till quite dry, season with pepper and salt, and make it into balls the size of a walnut. ] GGently and carefully slip these into the golden coloured stock. The contrasting colours in tho soup will have a very good appearance. Spinach Soup (a meagre soup). — Take chopped spinach, sorrel, chervil, and lettuce, but not very fine; fry them in butter until browned, put them to the desired quantity of boiling water with an onion stuck round with cloves, a very stale French roll sliced, and some blanched and shred pistachio kernels. Let all simmer together. Beat up the yolks of eight eggs with a little wine and the juice of a lemon, and add to the broth when strained. Serve with a toasted French roll in the centre of the dish, j and garnish -with poached egg and scalded spinach.