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Spinach, Puree of, with Butter
Pick the stalks from three pounds of spinach, and wash it in two or three waters. Lift it out of the water with the fingers that the sand may settle at the bottom, and put it into a saucepan with as much boiling water slightly salted as will keep it from burning. Keep it boiling till it is tender, and press it under the water occasionally with a wooden spoon. Drain it well; carefully pick away any stalks or fibre that may still remain in it, and rub it through a coarse sieve. Put the pulp into a saucepan with a slice of fresh butter and a little pepper and salt, and stir it briskly over the fire till it is quite hot. Add a spoonful or two of sauce, and let it remain on the fire, stirring all the time, for five minutes. Serve very hot, and garnish with fried sippets, or pile it in the centre of a dish, and place lamb or mutton cutlets on end round it, the long bones inclining towards each other. Time to boil the spinach, ten to fifteen minutes. Probable cost, 3d. to 6d. per pound.
A straightforward vegetable purée from the era when spinach was cooked long and then forced through a sieve. Two things need updating: the boiling time and the vague reference to "sauce."
- Cut the boiling timeTen to fifteen minutes was normal when spinach was mature, thick-stemmed and often gritty, but it turns the leaves khaki and washes out flavour. Modern bunched or bagged spinach is tender in two to three minutes in a little salted water, or simply wilted in the pan with the water clinging to the leaves.
- "A spoonful or two of sauce"The recipe does not say which sauce; in context it most likely means a spoonful of white sauce or gravy already to hand, added to bind and enrich the puree. A few tablespoons of thick white sauce, or of cream reduced with the spinach, does the same job.
- Three pounds is not much finished puréeThree pounds is not much finished puree -- Spinach collapses dramatically in cooking, losing most of its bulk. Three pounds of raw leaves should give roughly a pint of puree, enough for about four as a side dish, and plausibly the quantity intended for the cutlet presentation described.
- The sieveRubbing through a coarse sieve gives a slightly rough texture that a blender will not; a food mill or the pulse button on a processor is closer. Whatever you use, the spinach must be squeezed very dry first or the purée will be watery.
- Washing still mattersThe instruction to lift the leaves out with the fingers rather than pour off the water is sound technique, not fussiness. Grit sinks; tipping the bowl returns it to the leaves. Two changes of water is usually enough for bagged spinach, three for field-grown bunches.
- SippetsSmall triangles or fingers of bread fried in butter until crisp. Cut them from a firm white loaf and fry just before serving, as they soften quickly against a wet purée.
- The cutlet arrangementLamb cutlets stood on end with the bones leaning inward was a standard Victorian dish presentation. It works if the cutlets are French-trimmed and the purée is stiff enough to hold them; a slack purée will let them slide flat.