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Spinach Souffle
Wash the spinach in several waters, put it in a covered saucepan on a good fire. Stir now and then to prevent burning, and after fifteen minutes add one tablespoon of salt. Cook five minutes more; drain and squeeze out the water. Then chop up very fine. Put into a saucepan one generous tablespoon of butter, three-quarters tablespoon of flour, stir, and when they are half cooked, add the spinach and a little salt and pepper. Cook for five minutes, then pour in four or five tablespoons of cream, stirring constantly to prevent burning. Take a cup of spinach, prepared as above, beat up the yolk of one egg, mix it with the spinach, and stir over the fire until the egg is set; then let it cool, and before serving stir the wellbeaten whites of three eggs lightly into it. Fill china cups or buttered papered forms half full, put them into a hot oven for ten or fifteen minutes, and serve at once. If too little baked or not served at once, the souffle will be spoiled.
Spinach "in Riccioli" Boil the spinach and pass it through a fine colander. Beat up two eggs, add salt and pepper, and mix enough spinach into them to make them green. Put a little olive-oil into a frying-pan, and when it is thoroughly heated (but not boiling), pour a little of the egg, turning the pan about so that the pancake should be as thin as a piece of paper and dry. Toss if necessary. Take it out; repeat with the rest of the egg. Then take the pancakes, place them one on top of the other, and cut them into pieces the width of a finger and about two inches long. Fry them in butter, and grate a little Parmesan cheese over them. They make a very nice garnish.
Two dishes are run together here: a small spinach soufflé built on a béchamel base, and a garnish of paper-thin spinach omelettes cut into ribbons. The soufflé is only lightly egged, so timing at the oven door is everything.
- Quantity of spinachThe original never says how much to buy. Roughly 1 to 2 lb of fresh spinach, depending on how coarse it is, will give you the cup of prepared creamed spinach the souffle calls for. Frozen chopped spinach, thawed and wrung hard in a towel, works for the base.
- The cooking time is far too longTwenty minutes in a covered pan turns spinach to khaki sludge. Wet leaves in a covered pan collapse in 2 to 4 minutes over high heat; drain, cool briefly, then squeeze and chop.
- That tablespoon of saltA full tablespoon is for a large pan of leaves cooking in their own water, and much of it drains away with the liquid. Salt lightly at the wilting stage and correct at the end, once the roux and cream have gone in.
- Setting the yolkCooking the yolk into the hot spinach base before folding in the whites is the hinge of the dish. Stir it over low heat only until the mixture thickens and pulls from the pan; if it scrambles you lose the smooth base and the soufflé will be grainy.
- Folding the whitesThe base must be fully cool before the whites go in, and the whites should be beaten to soft, glossy peaks rather than dry. Fold in three additions with a spatula, cutting down and turning up; overmixing here is the usual cause of a flat soufflé.
- Papered formsButtered ramekins are the modern equivalent; the paper lined the mould so the souffle would turn out cleanly. Fill only halfway as directed, and for a 'hot oven' something around 400F for 10 to 15 minutes, until risen and just set with a slight wobble, is a reasonable reading. Serve immediately, as the book insists.
- YieldOne cup of spinach base plus three whites should fill roughly four small ramekins half full, enough as a first course or a side for four.
- Spinach in RiccioliThis is a separate recipe: thin spinach-tinted omelettes, stacked, cut into finger-width strips about two inches long, crisped in butter and dusted with Parmesan.