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Spinach, American Style
Wash the spinach until all trace of sand has disappeared. Then boil one-half hour in two cups of salted boiling water, turn it into a colander, and press out all the water possible. With a knife chop the spinach rather coarsely leaving it in the colander for this cutting. Now return it to the kettle in which it was boiled, add one tablespoon of butter, and 8 salt and pepper to taste, and stir until very hot; turn at once into the serving dish, shape the spinach into a round mound, and lay on the top slices of hard boiled eggs. Serve while hot.
A plain boiled-and-buttered spinach from a 1911 American household book. The only thing standing between it and a good dish is the cooking time.
- Halve the time, then halve it againHalf an hour turns spinach grey-brown and washes most of its flavour into the water. Young leaves are done in 1-2 minutes in boiling water, mature bunch spinach in 3-4; cook until just collapsed and still green.
- No quantity is givenThe single tablespoon of butter suggests a modest amount. Reckon on about 2 lb of untrimmed bunch spinach, or about 1 1/2 lb trimmed leaves, which cooks down to roughly 1 1/2 to 2 cups and serves four.
- "Kettle" means a potIn this period a kettle is any deep cooking pot, not a tea kettle. Use a wide pan so the leaves wilt evenly rather than steaming in a heap.
- The washing is not optionalBunch spinach genuinely does carry grit. Fill a sink or large bowl with cold water, plunge the leaves, lift them out rather than pouring off, and repeat until no sand settles. Bagged pre-washed spinach skips this step.
- Press, but not to deathThe colander press is there to keep the finished dish from weeping. A firm push with the back of a spoon is enough; wringing it dry costs you texture.
- Chopping in the colanderA sensible instruction if you are working with a knife against a metal colander, though a board is easier. "Rather coarsely" means visible ribbons, not puree.
- Season after drainingSalt in the cooking water plus salt at the end can easily overshoot once the volume has collapsed. Taste in the pan before it goes into the dish.
- The eggsTwo hard-boiled eggs, sliced, cover a mound for four. Have them cooked and peeled before the spinach goes in the water, since the dish must reach the table hot.
The "American style" in the title may be doing quiet work: it can be read as distinguishing this treatment from the French manner, in which spinach was cooked, pressed, sieved and then finished with cream or a good deal of butter into a smooth puree. The American version keeps the leaf coarse, dresses it with a single tablespoon of butter, and relies on sliced hard-boiled egg for richness and appearance - a garnish common in late nineteenth-century cookery. The Butterick Publishing Company, generally associated with dress patterns and The Delineator, appears to have issued this book as part of a broad line of domestic guides aimed at middle-class households running their own kitchens without professional help, which would account for the flat, procedural style. The long boil reflects the era's general suspicion of underdone vegetables rather than any culinary necessity; the shift to brief cooking for green vegetables came later, and gradually.