German Spinach

Pick over a peck of spinach heedfully, removing all decayed and withered leaves. Less than a peck will not make a dish of fair size. Pick off the leaves, lay in cold water for half an hour, and, without shaking off the wet, fill an agate-iron or porcelain saucepan with them, adding no water. The wet leaves will not scorch and will presently yield enough liquid to cook themselves. Cover the saucepan to facilitate the process and now and then stir up from the bottom. Bring slowly to the boil, after which cook fast for fifteen minutes. The idea prevalent in some kitchens that spinach should boil for, at least, one hour, accounts partially for the ill-conditioned messes often dished under this name.

Salt the boiled spinach in the pot, turn into a colander to drain, then into a chopping-tray, and mince it fine. Heat a great spoonful of butter in a saucepan and make a roux of it with a scant tablespoonful of flour. When they bubble together season with pepper and salt and stir in the spinach. Heat to a boil, put in with the mixture four tablespoonfuls of cream, and stir almost dry. Turn into a deep dish, or mound upon a platter, and garnish with slices of hard-boiled egg, or triangles of fried bread.

Spinach In A Mould

Pick over carefully, wash, clip off the stems, and put the leaves, without water, in a saucepan over the fire. Boil fifteen minutes. When done, drain, pressing out all the water. Chop fine, put back into the saucepan with a piece of butter - a large spoonful for a good dish - a little powdered sugar, salt and pepper to taste. Stir and toss until very hot; press hard into a mould wet with hot water, and turn out with care upon a heated dish. Lay round slices of hard-boiled eggs on the top.

French Spinach

Boil as directed in foregoing recipes, chop, heat with the roux, and season with pepper and salt. In place of the cream in the German method, add the same quantity of white stock - chicken or veal - adding half a saltspoonful of nutmeg or mace and an even teaspoonful of sugar, with a pinch of grated lemon-peel. This seasoning imparts an exquisite flavor to the vegetable.

Spinach Souffle

Boil and chop a peck of spinach, and while hot stir in a table-spoonful of butter and a beaten egg, salt, and nutmeg. Season with a little sugar, pepper, and set away to get cold. When you are ready for it, whip into the cold spinach two table-spoonfuls of cream and the stiffened whites of three eggs. Pour into a handsome bake-dish, sift a small teaspoonful of powdered sugar on top, and bake in a hot oven ten minutes, covered, five minutes when you have uncovered it. Send immediately to table, as it soon falls.

It may be served as a separate course at a luncheon. Each portion should be helped out upon a square of fried bread laid upon each plate.

As the initiated will at once see, this is also a French recipe.

Spinach Boiled Plain

Wash a peck of spinach, pick the leaves from the stems, and, without shaking off the wet, put them into an agate-iron or porcelain saucepan. Set this in a pot of boiling water, cover closely, and cook for fifteen minutes. Stir up well from the bottom, then, and put into the saucepan a tablespoonful of hot water in which has been dissolved half a saltspoonful of soda. Beat in well, cover the pot, and cook ten minutes longer. Drain the spinach in a colander without pressing it at first, seasoning with salt, pepper, butter, a little sugar, and half a tea-spoonful of lemon-juice. Turn into a hot colander, press out the remaining juice very gently not to bruise the spinach, and serve on a heated platter. Cover with slices of hard-boiled egg, and serve one with each portion of spinach. The soda gives a fine green to this vegetable.

Spinach A La Geneve

Cook as directed in foregoing recipe, but mound upon a hot platter and cover completely with the yolks of six hard-boiled eggs rubbed to a powder, with a narrow border of the whites minced fine at the lower and outer edge of the mound. The effect is exceedingly pretty and the pounded egg is a pleasant addition to the spinach.