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Spinach, Demi-Glace
Carefully trim three quarts fresh spinach, thoroughly wash in cold water, drain on sieve, plunge in a gallon boiling water with tablespoon salt and boil ten minutes. Drain, press out water with a skimmer. Finely chop, then place in a small saucepan with half ounce butter, half teaspoon salt and half teaspoon sugar, two saltspoons pepper and a saltspoon grated nutmeg; stir well. Reduce two gills demi-glace to a gill on the range, then pour over the spinach. Dress on a hot vegetable dish. Arrange six heart-shaped bread croutons around and serve.
A classic French treatment of spinach, finished with reduced brown sauce. The demi-glace is the whole point and the only real work.
- Demi-glaceTwo gills is one cup, reduced to half a cup. Demi-glace is brown veal stock and espagnole sauce cooked down; a good commercial demi-glace concentrate or a well-reduced brown stock stands in. Do not substitute gravy granules, which will taste of nothing but salt.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is roughly a quarter teaspoon. So two saltspoons pepper is about half a teaspoon, and the nutmeg a quarter teaspoon.
- Quantity of spinachThree quarts of trimmed leaves is about 12 oz to 1 lb by weight, and cooks down to a small amount. Four to six servings as a side; the six croutons suggest the recipe intended the larger number.
- Boiling timeThe period method boiled greens in a large volume of salted water, which helps keep the colour, but ten minutes is longer than modern spinach needs; two to three minutes is enough, and longer turns it olive and washes out flavour.
- PressingSqueeze the drained spinach hard, ideally in a clean towel. Any retained water will thin the demi-glace and pool on the serving dish.
- Order of finishingThe spinach goes into the pan with butter and seasoning and is warmed through; the reduced sauce is poured over at the end rather than stirred in and cooked. Keep the two distinct or the dish becomes a uniform brown mash.
- CroutonsCut six hearts from firm white bread and fry in clarified butter until crisp on both sides. Fry them last so they do not soften while the spinach is finished.
Spinach with demi-glace belongs to the codified French repertoire of the turn of the twentieth century, when almost any vegetable could be sent out "au jus", "à la crème" or with a brown sauce depending on what it accompanied, and a kitchen kept a pot of espagnole and reduced stock at hand all day. The heart-shaped fried croutons are a period signature rather than a garnish with any function: cut into hearts, points or diamonds, they appear around spinach, sweetbreads and creamed dishes throughout the professional cookbooks of the era, and they mark this as a restaurant preparation transcribed for the domestic reader. The recipe assumes a stock of demi-glace already sitting on the range and spends its detail on the seasoning instead.