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Spinach "That's Different"
2 well beaten eggs 3 cups milk 3 cups rolled cracker crumbs 2 cups cooked and drained spinach 4 tablespoons melted shortening Salt and pepper to taste Beat eggs, add milk, crackers and spinach, melted shortening and seasonings. Bake in greased baking dish, in moderate oven, 375 degrees, until firm, as for custard. Serves 8.
A savory spinach custard bound with cracker crumbs rather than flour. The recipe gives a temperature but no baking time, so judge it the way you would any custard.
- Baking timeThe recipe gives no time. Expect roughly 45 to 60 minutes at 375F in a dish of at least 2.5 to 3 quarts, which is what this quantity of mixture needs. It is done when a knife inserted an inch from the center comes out clean and the middle is set but still trembles slightly; carryover heat finishes it.
- Rolled cracker crumbsSoda crackers or saltines crushed with a rolling pin, not fine dry breadcrumbs. Three cups of coarse crumbs is roughly 6 ounces, or about one and a half sleeves of saltines. If you use salted crackers, go very light on the added salt.
- Spinach quantityTwo cups cooked and well drained equals about 2 pounds of fresh spinach, or two 10-ounce packages of frozen leaf spinach. Squeeze it hard in a towel: wet spinach is the main reason this kind of custard weeps.
- ShorteningMost likely a solid fat: vegetable shortening or lard, depending on the household. Melted butter works well here and gives the dish more flavor of its own.
- Chop the spinachThe original does not say one way or the other. Chopping the drained spinach coarsely makes the custard cut and serve more neatly.
- Water bathNot called for, but setting the dish in a pan of hot water gives a smoother, more evenly cooked custard and protects the edges from overbaking while the center sets.
- ServingServes 8 as a side dish. It is good hot, and firm enough to cut into squares once cooled, which is how leftovers are best eaten.
Vegetable custards and "puddings" like this one were a common way of stretching a small amount of a strong-tasting vegetable across a family table, and the cracker crumb binder points to an American kitchen: crushed soda crackers often stood in for breadcrumbs in casseroles, loaves and scalloped dishes. The quotation marks in the title do a lot of work, promising novelty, and spinach in particular had a reputation as a dutiful, faintly medicinal vegetable eaten for iron rather than pleasure. Baking it into a mild egg-and-milk custard was the compromise: the vegetable stays on the menu, but it arrives tasting mostly of custard.