Spinach à la Crème

Ingredients

• a peck of spinach
• one cupful of water
• a table-spoonful of salt
• three table-spoonfuls of butter
• two table-spoonfuls of flour
• a cupful of cream
• salt and pepper to suit your taste

Method

1. 1

   Wash spinach thoroughly to remove sand.

2. 2

   Cook in a stew-pan with water for 15 minutes.

3. 3

   Add salt and cook for 5 more minutes.

4. 4

   Drain, mince finely.

5. 5

   In a frying-pan, melt butter, add flour, stir until smooth, then add spinach and cook for 5 minutes.

6. 6

   Add cream and season, cook for 3 minutes, and serve on toast.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Miss Parloa's kitchen companion (1887) by Maria Parloa, page 274. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

Spinach & la Crdme. Pick apart, leaf by leaf, a peck of spinach. Throw away the decayed portions, and put the rest into a large pan of water. When this has been done, take the pan to the sink and wash the spinach free of sand. This is a difficult operation, requiring much care and a great deal of water. Two pans should be used, and only a few pieces of spinach washed at a time. They should then be laid in the second pan, in clean water ; and after the first pan has been very thoroughly rinsed and filled again with fresh water, wash the spinach again, and return it to the first pan. Continue the washing from pan to pan until no trace of sand can be found. No other method will give clean spinach, and unless one be willing to take all the pains described, it would be better to do without the vegetable. Now that the spinach is clean, put it into a large stew- pan, with one cupful of water ; and after covering closely, cook for a quarter of an hour. Add a table-spoonful of salt, and cook five minutes longer; then remove from the fire and turn into a colander, and press out as much water as possible. Put into a chopping-tray, and mince very fine. A little before serving-time, put three table-spoonfuls of butter into a frying-pan, and when it has become VEGETABLES. 525 melted, add two table-spoonfuls of flour. Stir the mix- ture until it becomes smooth and frothy ; then add the chopped spinach, and cook for five minutes, stirring con- stantly. Add a cupful of cream, and salt and pepper to suit your taste

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