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Spinach Soup
Pick over, wash, and stem half a peck of spinach, put in the inner vessel of a double boiler, with boiling water in the outer, and cook tender. Rub the spinach through the vegetable press back into the saucepan. Add a pint of good stock; season with salt, pepper, a teaspoonful of sugar, and a pinch of mace. Quickly bring it to a boil, stir in a tablespoonful of butter rolled in a teaspoonful of flour, and cook for one minute.
Both celery and cauliflower are good used in the same way.
A straightforward puree soup that depends almost entirely on the quantity of spinach and the quality of the stock. Two details in the original need translating before you start.
- Half a peck of spinachA peck is a dry measure of eight quarts, so half a peck is four quarts of loosely packed leaves. By the old trade weight for spinach (roughly 20 lb to the bushel) that is on the order of two to three pounds untrimmed, rather less once stemmed, and it cooks down to a cup or two of puree.
- The double boilerSpinach was cooked over water here presumably to keep it from scorching. A wide heavy pan with a lid and only the water clinging to the washed leaves does the same job in five to seven minutes, and faster cooking keeps the green brighter.
- Vegetable pressA conical sieve or food mill with a wooden pestle. A food mill on its finest plate gives the closest texture; a blender gives a smoother, more modern puree but will incorporate air and lighten the colour.
- A pint of stock to that much spinachTwo cups of stock against the puree from this much spinach makes a thick soup, closer to a puree than a broth. Thin with more stock or a little milk to the consistency you want before the butter and flour go in.
- The beurre maniéA tablespoon of butter worked with a teaspoon of flour, dropped into simmering soup. Add it in small pieces off a full boil and whisk, or it will sit as lumps; one minute of cooking is enough to lose the raw flour taste at this small quantity.
- Mace and sugarBoth are corrective rather than decorative — sugar offsets the mineral edge of spinach, mace supplies warmth without the sharpness of nutmeg. Ground mace loses its aroma quickly, so taste before committing to more than a pinch.
- Celery and cauliflowerThe substitution works, but both take considerably longer to cook tender than spinach, and cauliflower puree is stiffer and needs more liquid. Neither wants the sugar.
- YieldRoughly three to four cups undiluted, so three or four small servings.