No. 2821

Spinach a la Noailles

Epinards a la Noailles

Carefully pick the spinach, removing the largest stalks; wash it several times, changing the water, then blanch in an untinned copper vessel with salted water, letting it boil incessantly. When the stalks are tender enough to crush under the pressure of the finger, drain the spinach in a coarse colander, refresh and drain again; press out all the water, pick over to remove any straws or other impurities and then chop it up; force this through a coarse sieve; place the pulp in a saucepan with a piece of butter, put the saucepan on the fire, stir continuously until the moisture is evaporated, then besprinkle with flour; moisten with some thick veal blond (No. 423), adding a little meat glaze (No. 402), salt and nutmeg. A moment before serving stir in a piece of fresh butter. The flour can be replace by some veloute sauce (No. 415).

← No. 2820 Spinach with Bechamel Sauce and with Cream Cabbages & Greens No. 2822 Spinach a la Rougemont →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer gives a classic French spinach purée: blanch, press, sieve, then dry out over heat and enrich with stock, glaze and butter. He assumes a professional kitchen with stocks already made and no measurements at all.

The hinge: dry the puréeThe step that decides the dish is stirring the pulp in butter until the moisture has evaporated. Spinach holds enormous amounts of water, and if it is not driven off first the flour and stock will slacken into a green soup rather than a purée that holds its shape on the spoon.
The untinned copper vesselCopper ions bind with chlorophyll to fix a vivid green, and unlined copper pans were commonly recommended for cooking greens in this period. Use stainless steel instead and blanch uncovered in heavily salted water; the colour will be nearly as good, and unlined copper is best avoided for cooking today.
"Letting it boil incessantly"Salted water at a hard rolling boil, spinach added in handfuls so it never stops boiling. Modern leaf spinach needs one to two minutes, not the several minutes older thicker-stemmed spinach took. "Refresh" means plunge into ice water at once, which stops the cooking and preserves the colour.
Veal blond and meat glazeNo. 423 is a light veal stock, here wanted thick, i.e. reduced; No. 402 is glace de viande, stock reduced to a syrupy glaze. A good unsalted veal or chicken stock works for the first, and a tablespoon of heavily reduced stock for the second. Both are salty when reduced, so season at the end.
Velouté as the alternativeHis closing note means you may skip the flour entirely and bind the dry purée with a few spoonfuls of velouté (No. 415: white stock thickened with blond roux). Béchamel does the same job if that is what is in the refrigerator, and gives the version he numbers 2820.
Sieve and textureChopping and then forcing through a coarse sieve gives a purée with some body left in it. A food mill on the coarse plate is the closest modern equivalent; a food processor will do it but tends toward a smooth, slightly gluey paste, so pulse rather than run it.
Quantities and yieldNone are given. Reckon about 2 lb of untrimmed spinach for four as a side dish, which cooks down to roughly a cup of purée; 2 to 3 tablespoons of butter in total, a scant tablespoon of flour, and stock added a spoonful at a time until it just loosens. Nutmeg should be barely detectable.
The final butterThe piece of fresh butter stirred in off the heat at the last moment is not optional richness but the finish that gives the purée its gloss. Do not let it boil after that or it will separate.

A Little History

Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the book's structure — numbered recipes cross-referring to a small library of stocks, sauces and glazes — is the working method of a large French brigade transplanted to Manhattan. Garnish names like à la Noailles belong to the nineteenth-century French habit of attaching aristocratic houses to set preparations; the Noailles were an old and prominent French noble family, and the dedication is conventional rather than evidence that anyone in it invented the dish. What distinguishes this version from the plainer spinach with béchamel or cream that precedes it is the use of veal stock and meat glaze, which put it firmly on the meat side of the kitchen: it is a purée built to sit under or beside roast veal, sweetbreads or eggs, not a vegetable dish for a fast day. Sieved spinach purées of this kind were a fixture of grand service well into the twentieth century, and survive in restaurant kitchens as épinards en branches's richer cousin.</think>{