No. 2820

Spinach with Bechamel Sauce and with Cream

Epinards a la Bechamel et a la Creme

Pick some fresh, tender spinach, using only the leaves; when well cleaned and washed in several waters plunge into boiling salted water, and blanch for five or six minutes; drain, refresh and press out every particle of moisture. Chop finely and put into a saucepan with hot melted butter. Season, place the saucepan on a brisk fire for a few moments without ceasing to stir until the moistening is reduced, and finish with two spoonfuls of thick bechamel (No. 409), and another piece of butter.

With Cream.-After the spinach has been prepared as for the above, and thoroughly dried, add to it a little flour, moisten with cream and stir constantly. Just when ready to serve incorporate a piece of fresh butter, then dress and garnish around with puff paste crescents or small bouchees filled with bechamel (No. 411).

← No. 2819 Sauerkraut Garnished Cabbages & Greens No. 2821 Spinach a la Noailles →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer gives no quantities, which was normal for a professional kitchen manual — the cook was expected to know. The two versions are the same base finished differently, and both live or die on how dry you get the spinach.

QuantityNothing is stated. Reckon on 2 lb of mature leaf spinach for four as a side; it collapses to about a cup and a half once blanched and pressed. Bagged baby spinach works but gives a looser, wetter purée.
Press out every particle of moistureThis is the hinge. Squeeze the blanched spinach hard in a towel or against a sieve until no more water runs. Any water left behind will thin the béchamel and the dish will weep on the plate.
Blanching timeFive or six minutes is longer than modern leaf spinach needs; one to two minutes is usually enough, and baby spinach only until it wilts. Overblanching costs colour and flavour.
RefreshMeans plunging straight into ice water to stop the cooking and hold the green. Do it before pressing, not after.
SpoonfulsRead this as roughly a tablespoon each; Ranhofer does not define his spoon measures. Two of thick bechamel to the pressed spinach above is about right — enough to bind, not to sauce.
Thick béchamelRanhofer's No. 409 is a stiff white sauce built on a butter-and-flour roux with milk, reduced until it coats heavily. Make it thicker than a pouring sauce; it is a binder here.
The cream versionSprinkle the flour over the hot buttered spinach and cook it out for a minute before the cream goes in, or the dish tastes of raw flour. Heavy cream, added in stages, stirring until it thickens.
Bouchées and crescentsSmall puff-pastry cases and crescent-cut shapes, baked separately and filled at the last moment so they do not soften. Frozen all-butter puff pastry is a fair substitute; fill just before serving.
Finishing butterThe final piece of fresh butter is best stirred in off the heat for gloss. Do not let it boil afterwards or it will separate.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894 as a record of that kitchen's repertoire — some 3,500 numbered recipes, cross-referenced to one another as this one is to sauces 409 and 411. Spinach dressed with butter and a white sauce was a fixture of nineteenth-century French service, where the vegetable was valued less for itself than as a vehicle: it is often said in French kitchens that spinach is the wax of the cook, taking whatever impression is pressed into it. The two treatments here, a la bechamel and a la creme, show the standard restaurant logic of the period, where one prepared base was finished two or three ways and given a different name on the menu each time. The garnish of puff-paste crescents and filled bouchees suggests a dish sent out on a platter for the table rather than plated individually.