Home › The Principles of Cookery › Spinach, with Eggs

Spinach, with Eggs

Wash the spinach in several waters. Pick off all the stalks, reject the decayed and discoloured leaves, and boil the spinach with as much slightly-salted water as will keep it from burning. Leave the saucepan uncovered. Press the spinach under the water occasionally, and let it boil till tender. Put it into a colander, and press the moisture from it with the back of a plate. Mince it finely, then put it into a saucepan with a slice of fresh butter and a little pepper and salt, and stir it well till it is hot and dry. Put it on a hot dish, smooth it with the blade of a knife, and mark it in squares. Place as many poached eggs as there are guests on the top of the spinach, or, if preferred, put them round it, each egg on a piece of buttered toast. Serve the whole very hot. If a superior dish is required, the spinach, after being boiled till tender, may be rubbed through a wire sieve, and the pulp heated with a slice of fresh butter, a table-spoonful of thick cream, and a little pepper and salt. To poach the eggs, proceed as follows. Break the eggs carefully into separate cups. Have ready a small omelet-pan with as much boiling water in it as will cover the eggs. Throw into this a tea-spoonful of vinegar and a pinch of salt. Slip the eggs gently into the water one at a time. As soon as one sets put in another, and boil them gently until done enough. When the yolks are covered with a thin filmy veil, and the whites are firm, lift the eggs out with a slicer, drain them for a moment, and place them on the spinach. Time to boil the spinach, ten to fifteen minutes.