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Vegetables, Stew Of
Take two pounds of spinach; pick it, wash it in several waters to free it from grit, and mix with it a large handful of parsley picked and chopped small, and two moderate-sized onions, also minced. Put the spinach, etc., into a stewpan, sprinkle a little pepper and salt over it, and add about half a pint of nicely-flavoured stock thickened with flour and butter. Cover the pan closely, and let its contents simmer gently till tender. Chop them small, again heat them over the fire, and serve with broiled ham.
A plain Victorian braise of spinach with onion and parsley, finished as a rough purée and served alongside ham. The main adjustments are to the liquid quantity and the cooking time.
- The hinge: far less liquid than it looksTwo pounds of spinach releases a great deal of water as it collapses, so the half pint of thickened stock will quickly become a soup. Add half of it to start, keep the pan covered, and only add the rest at the end if the mixture is too stiff.
- Timing"Simmer gently till tender" gives no time. Modern bunched spinach needs 8-10 minutes covered; bagged baby leaf needs 3-4. The onions want a head start, so sweat them in the butter before the greens go in.
- Half a pintIn an English book of this date, an imperial half pint: 10 fl oz, about 300 ml (roughly 1 1/4 US cups). The recipe specifies only "nicely-flavoured stock"; a well-flavoured chicken stock does the job.
- Thickened with flour and butterA beurre manié or a small roux — equal weights of soft butter and flour, roughly 1/2 oz (15 g) of each for this quantity, worked to a paste and whisked into the stock. Cook it a minute or two after it thickens so the flour loses its raw taste.
- Washing in several watersStill worth doing with any spinach sold loose or in bunches. Lift the leaves out of the water rather than pouring the water off, so the grit stays in the bowl.
- Chopping after cookingThe second chopping is what gives the dish its character — a coarse, spoonable mash rather than whole leaves. A knife on a board gives a better texture than a food processor, which turns it to slurry.
- SeasoningSpinach cooked down in stock needs more salt than seems reasonable, and takes well to a grating of nutmeg, common in period spinach cookery, and a squeeze of lemon at the end.
- YieldTwo pounds of raw spinach reduces to roughly a pound cooked: four modest side portions with the ham, or two if the vegetables are the main event.
Spinach dressed with butter, stock and a little flour was one of the standard vegetable preparations of the nineteenth-century English kitchen. Cooked spinach was often chopped into a rough purée — French cooks called it épinards en branches when left whole, and hachés when chopped. Pairing it with broiled ham reflects the period's habit of treating vegetables as an accompaniment to salt meat, where the sweetness of onion and the iron edge of the greens cut the cure.