Spinach

Ingredients

• a good bowlful of spinach
• an ounce of butter
• a table-spoonful of cream
• a tea-spoonful of flour
• a little pepper
• a little salt

Method

1. 1

   Wash the spinach in several waters, lifting it out to let grit sink.

2. 2

   Tear away the stalks, put spinach in a large iron pan with the water clinging to it, and stir to prevent burning.

3. 3

   Boil until tender (10-15 minutes).

4. 4

   Drain, chop finely, or rub through a sieve.

5. 5

   Melt butter, add pepper, salt, cream, and spinach, stirring until hot.

6. 6

   Press into a mould, turn onto a hot dish, and serve.

7. 7

   Optionally, top with poached eggs and serve fried sippets around.

As published

This recipe was extracted from A year's cookery (1880) by Phillis Browne, page 146. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

Spinach — Spinach sinks so much in boiling that it will require a good bowlful to make a dish. It needs to be washed in several waters, because, as it grows so near the ground, there is usually a good deal of grit in it. When it is being washed it should be lifted out of the water with the hands : by this means the grit sinks to the bottom of the pan. When thoroughly cleansed double each leaf together, and tear away the stalk and its continuation quite down the back of the leaf. Put the spinach with the water that clings to it into a large iron pan. Do not put on the lid, but keep stirring the spinach to prevent its burning. In a very short time it will have yielded sufficient water to do away with any fear of this. Let it boil quickly till tender ; it will take from ten to fifteen minutes. Pour it into a colander and press the water from it with a vegetable presser or the back of a plate. Put it on a board and chop it as finely as possible, or, if it is wanted very good, rub it through a wire sieve. Melt an ounce of butter in a stewpan, add a little pepper and salt, a table-spoonful of cream, and the spinach, and keep stirring till thoroughly mixed and quite hot. Press the vegetable into a mould, turn upon a hot dish, and serve. If liked, poached eggs can be laid upon it and fried sippets served round it. Sometimes a tea-spoonful of flour

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.