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Spinach Balls
Equal amounts of finely chopped spinach and very fine dry bread crumbs. Season highly with pepper, salt and cayenne. Add enough white of egg to moisten well, then stand aside to stiffen. Shape in balls size of a hickory nut; poach in hot soup for five minutes, and serve with clear soup.
A garnish dumpling for clear soup, of the kind that turned up on formal holiday menus when the first course was expected to arrive with something floating in it. The whole dish hinges on getting the spinach dry enough that the egg white can bind it.
- The spinachThe recipe almost certainly intends cooked spinach, chopped fine and pressed hard to expel water; raw leaf will weep in the soup and the balls are likely to disintegrate. Frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed in a towel until it feels almost dry, works well: about 10 oz frozen yields roughly a cup packed.
- Equal amountsMeasure by volume after the spinach is squeezed, so a cup of spinach to a cup of fine dry crumbs. Use crumbs dried in a low oven and sifted; fresh soft crumbs absorb differently and give a pasty ball.
- Hickory nut sizeAbout the size of a large marble, roughly 3/4 to 1 inch across. Larger balls need longer than five minutes and tend to break up before the centre sets.
- Egg white onlyThe white is the binder and the whole yolk would soften the mixture and dull the colour. One white is usually enough for a cup of each; add it a little at a time until the mass just holds together when pressed.
- Standing aside to stiffenTwenty to thirty minutes is usually enough for the dry crumbs to finish drawing up the moisture. Balls that have not been left to stiffen are the likelier ones to fall apart in the pot.
- PoachingKeep the soup at a bare shiver, not a boil — agitation tears them. Five minutes at a gentle poach is right for the size given; they should feel firm.
- Poach separatelyThe recipe poaches the balls in the soup itself; crumbs and starch may cloud a consommé, so if clarity matters, cook them in a little of the stock or in salted water in a separate pan, then lift them into freshly heated clear soup.
- Seasoning"Season highly" is meant literally: the balls sit in a lightly salted broth and taste flat if underseasoned. Cayenne here is a pinch, not a spoonful — enough for warmth at the back of the throat.
- YieldA cup each of spinach and crumbs makes a large number of balls at the size given — three or four per bowl for six to eight servings.
Clear soup with a garnish was the standard opening of a formal dinner from the late nineteenth century into the 1930s, and cookbooks of the period carry long lists of things to drop into it: marrow balls, quenelles, custard royale cut in diamonds, tiny profiteroles, and vegetable forcemeats like this one. The pattern is always the same — a starch and a bound protein, shaped small so it cooks through in minutes and does not muddy the broth. Spinach earned its place partly for colour, a green fleck against amber consommé being one of the few decorative touches available before the roast arrived. The comparison to a hickory nut, rather than to a measurement, is characteristic of American cookery writing of the era, which reached for familiar objects — walnut, hickory nut, hen's egg, marble — when it wanted a cook to picture a size.