Home › Seven Weeks' Menus › Vegetable Harlequin
Vegetable Harlequin
Cook one-half peck spinach, as usual, in very little salted water. When done, drain very dry by pressing in colander, chop fine, and season. Cut three or four cooked beets into small dice, and heat in saucepan in tablespoon butter. Season with salt and pepper. Reheat about two cups drained cold peas in same way. Arrange spinach in ring around a small platter. It should be dry enough to make ridge one and one-half inches high. Inside ring, at either end, put beets, and in middle, peas, keeping line division as straight as possible. Over whole sprinkle minced parsley, and send very hot to table. This dish may be varied according to vegetables available, and is a good way to utilize small left-overs. Serves 6.
A composed vegetable platter built for color rather than novelty of flavor, and it depends entirely on getting each component dry and hot at the same moment.
- Half a peck of spinachA peck is a dry measure of 8 quarts, so a half peck is 4 quarts of loose leaves. Depending on how tightly the measure was filled that is somewhere between about 1 and 2 lb, cooking down to roughly 2 cups. Two 10-oz bags of modern spinach is a reasonable practical equivalent.
- Dry is the whole pointThe spinach has to hold a ridge an inch and a half high, which raw-tasting wet greens will not do. Press it hard in the colander with the back of a ladle, then chop; if it still weeps, return it to the dry pan over low heat for a minute.
- Keep the beets separateDiced beets will bleed into anything they touch. Butter and season them in their own pan, drain off any liquid, and set them in place last so the spinach edge stays green.
- Cooked peas, briefly warmed"Drained cold peas" means already-cooked peas from a can or a previous meal. Two cups of frozen peas work; warm them in butter just until hot through, a minute or two, or they turn drab and mealy.
- Cooking the spinach"In very little salted water" means a few tablespoons in a covered pan — the leaves steam in what clings to them. Three to five minutes is enough for tender leaves.
- Assemble at the last minuteNothing here reheats on the platter. Have all three vegetables hot in their pans, then build the ring, scatter parsley, and carry it straight out.
- SubstitutionsThe recipe invites them: diced carrot, corn, or green beans in place of any block, so long as the colors stay distinct and each element is drained. Serves 6 as a side dish.