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Spinach
Pick over carefully and wash very thoroughly in several waters until every bit of sand is removed. Put into large kettle and add very little boiling water, about 1/2 cup. Young spinach does not need any water. Boil until tender or about 25 minutes. Drain thoroughly, chop fine and drain again. Season with salt and pepper and garnish with slices of hard boiled eggs.
A plain boiled spinach of the sort every general cookbook carried. The method is sound apart from the cooking time, which belongs to an era of tougher, older, field-grown greens.
- The 25 minutesModern bagged or bunched spinach is tender enough to collapse in two to four minutes in a covered pan over medium heat. Twenty-five minutes turns it grey-green and flat-tasting, and drives off most of the vitamin C. Cook until it has just wilted and no longer.
- Very little waterThe instruction is right and worth keeping. Spinach is largely water and steams in what clings to the leaves after washing; the half cup is insurance against scorching before the leaves release their own liquid.
- WashingStill essential for bunched spinach with roots attached. Dunk in a deep bowl of cold water, lift the leaves out rather than pouring off, and repeat until no grit settles. Prewashed baby spinach needs only a rinse.
- Choice of panSpinach is high in oxalic acid, which reacts with bare cast iron and unlined aluminium to give a metallic taste and a dull grey colour. Use stainless steel or enamel.
- Draining and choppingThe double drain is the point of the recipe. Press the cooked spinach in a sieve or twist it in a towel, chop, then press again, or the finished dish will weep water onto the plate.
- SeasoningSalt and pepper alone is austere by current taste. A knob of butter or a spoonful of cream stirred into the chopped spinach, plus a grating of nutmeg or a squeeze of lemon, is the usual finish now and is entirely period-appropriate.
- YieldNot given in the original. A pound of raw spinach cooks down to roughly a cup and serves two; allow 8 to 10 oz per person if it is the main vegetable.
Spinach reached European kitchens from Persia by way of the Arab Mediterranean, and by the nineteenth century it was ordinary garden produce in Britain and America, sown in spring and again in autumn. The garnish of sliced hard-boiled egg here is a common finish in American cookbooks of the period, alongside the habit of calling egg-and-spinach dishes "Florentine" — a name often traced, on thin evidence, to Catherine de' Medici's fondness for the vegetable.