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Spinach, to Serve
This vegetable must be washed thoroughly in several waters to free it from grit. To do this lift it out of the water in both hands, a small quantity at a time. The stalk must be pulled from each leaf before boiling. Put the prepared spinach into an empty saucepan with a small tea-cupful of water, sprinkle a little salt over it, and stir it constantly to prevent burning. Boil the spinach till it becomes tender. Place the boiled spinach on a colander or sieve, press it, chop it on a clean board, put it into a saucepan, add butter and gravy or stock--taking care, however, not to thin it too much--and taste whether it is salt enough. Stir it over the fire till the liquid is absorbed, pile on a hot dish, and serve. Half an ounce of butter and one table-spoonful of cream or broth, will be enough for one pound of spinach. If cream a day old is to be obtained, we may finally incorporate a little flour with it, and add the whole to the spinach. To embellish this dish, cut milk bread into slices, forming the crust into points, fry in butter till yellow, prepare poached eggs, and serve the spinach, placing round it first an egg and then a crust alternately, sprinkling bread-crumbs over the vegetable itself.
A straightforward Victorian treatment of spinach: boiled in its own moisture, pressed, chopped and enriched. The only real trap is the vague "boil till tender," which by modern standards means far longer than spinach wants.
- Cook it brieflyYoung spinach is tender in two to three minutes in the small amount of water given here, and mature leaves in five. The long boil implied by "till it becomes tender" turns the leaves grey-brown and washes out the flavour that the butter and cream are meant to carry.
- Quantities and yieldA pound of raw spinach cooks down to roughly a cupful of pressed purée — one modest side serving for two. For four people at table, buy 2 to 3 lb. The enrichment scales as stated: 1/2 oz (1 tbsp) butter and 1 tbsp cream or stock per pound.
- The washing is not optionalSand settles, so lifting the leaves out of the water rather than pouring the water off the leaves is exactly right, and bagged "triple-washed" spinach still repays one rinse. Stalk-pulling matters most with large-leaved bunch spinach; baby leaf can go in whole.
- Press harder than feels reasonableAfter draining, squeeze the spinach in the sieve or in a clean towel until it stops giving up green water. The instruction "not to thin it too much" only works if the spinach is dry to begin with.
- ChoppingThe board and knife give a better texture than a food processor, which reduces pressed spinach to a slack purée in seconds. If you use a machine, pulse it three or four times and no more.
- "Cream a day old" and the flourThis most likely means cream that has thickened and slightly soured; the nearest thing now is creme fraiche or full-fat sour cream. The little flour worked into it acts as a thickener; whisk it in smooth off the heat before it meets the hot spinach, or it will lump.
- Pan choiceSpinach is high in oxalic acid, which reacts with bare cast iron and untreated aluminium to give a metallic taste and a dull grey colour. Use stainless steel or enamel.
- Milk breadA soft enriched white loaf, close to a modern pain de mie or sandwich loaf. The recipe's "forming the crust into points" is ambiguous, but the slices are evidently shaped into points and fried in butter until pale gold, not browned.
- The garnish, timedPoach the eggs first and hold them in warm water while you finish the spinach; the croutons can be fried ahead and kept crisp in a low oven. Pile the spinach, ring it with alternating eggs and points, and crumb the top only at the moment of serving.
Cassell's is describing something close to what the French kitchen called épinards à la crème — though here the spinach is finished with butter and gravy or stock, cream being only an alternative — and the finished dish, spinach with poached eggs set round it, is the ancestor of the various "Florentine" preparations that pair eggs or fish with a bed of spinach; the Florentine label is traditionally, though not documentably, credited to Catherine de' Medici's fondness for the vegetable. Spinach itself came west comparatively late, generally traced through Persia and Arab Spain into medieval Europe, and by the nineteenth century it was a staple of English kitchen gardens, cheap and abundant enough that a household book could assume pounds of it. The method here is worth noticing: cooking the leaves in barely a teacupful of water, then pressing and chopping them, was standard practice long before anyone spoke of retaining nutrients — the point was simply a firm, dark, spoonable purée that could be piled up on the dish rather than slumping, which is why the recipe warns against thinning it too much.