Something new to do with spinach

"An exotic from Persia, it was brought by the Moors to Spain, by the Spaniards to the Low Countries, by Flemish refugees to England. And after that great pilgrimage, we plunge it into cold water, boil it, and then force it on our children." Robert Carrier

Robert Carrier is right. The only time I remember eating spinach as a child was when my aunt gave it to us but told us it was cabbage. I trusted her but did think it didn't quite taste the same, so was not surprised when she told me. It has taken me many, many years to like spinach and I am a bit conservative with what I do with it. David loves it in salads, though I'm not that keen. Curiously I sort of came to spinach via silver beet which is extremely common here in Australia but was unknown in the England of my youth. It sort of tastes the same but a bit stronger. And I can grow it which makes it a bit favoured.

Anyway I have this bunch of spinach with which I have to do something or it will go off. Indeed, as I was doing my reading for this post I see that really you should pick it and cook it straightaway - like corn - or it tastes somewhat strong. Another candidate for buying frozen?

I have a range of 'standard' recipes I use with spinach and I was going to do one of them - spanakopita - I even bought the ricotta and feta to do it with, although I still have to get the filo (which Aldi seems to have stopped selling) - but then I just didn't fancy spinach with cheese, and I don't think David likes it all that much. My other 'standards' are a vegetarian lasagne (with cheese), cannelloni, gnocchi or a Robert Carrier tart all of which have the same sort of mixture.

What else can I do with it though? After all my research I think I have rather chickened out and am going to make a soup (well David is making his bread today), but it's a soup I haven't made before with beans. And I seem to be stuck on Beverley Sutherland Smith at the moment too, because it's one of her recipes. Indeed searching for a new recipe was an interesting experience in finding who had the most interesting offerings. She (and perhaps Jamie Oliver) had the most and the most varied.

For example you would have thought that Yotam Ottolenghi - middle-eastern/vegetarian would have had oodles of ideas. But no not really. Stephanie Alexander, Delia and Maggie Beer are also a bit conservative. Well Maggie and Stephanie had two different, and complicated, roulade recipes but I didn't quite feel up to that. Nigel Slater too - not a lot.

But before I go on to what I found - a brief little history. Robert Carrier more or less has the whole story at the top of the page but he omitted to mention that before the Moors brought it to Europe it went east to China from Persia and thence to India - both of which countries use it a lot in their cooking. Every Indian restaurant has the standard curry with spinach - I think the 'palak' means spinach. And the Persians did not cultivate it until the 6th century so it's a relatively late entry into the food chain. It's also one food that was taken to America from Europe and not vice versa. There seems to be some argument about the name, but most likely from the Persian 'aspanakh' which means green hand. There are various in-between forms in Arabic and Spanish and French. In Italy anything with the name Florentine is likely to include spinach, because this is the part of Italy that is famous for its spinach.

Then of course there's Popeye - but I won't go into that. Suffice to say that it is a very nutritious vegetable - iron and lots of vitamins - so it's popular in veggie smoothies.

"It can be by turn crisp and fresh, velvety, soft and gentle or strong and strident." Beverley Sutherland Smith

So what did I find?

First there are a heap of variations on the spinach and cheese thing for frittatas, omelettes and gratins. In Nice they seem to make a frittata or an omelette flavoured with pine nuts and currants and there were a few variations on this. Hugh Fearnley- Whittingstall has a gratin recipe with smoked fish. You can find it online here. I found it in his Love your Leftovers book - and the picture is shown at left. I can vouch for the fact that a straight potato and spinach gratin is very tasty - but this is not a meal in itself. If you add fish it is.

Then there are quite a few recipes for stuffing things with spinach, sometimes with cheese, sometimes mushrooms, and/or other things. Things stuffed include mushrooms, tomatoes and sardines - or onions. Beverley Sutherland Smith had a really tempting sounding recipe but it was fiddly and I wasn't in the mood. You had to boil the onions to soften them, then detach the leaves and then stuff the individual leaves, finally dousing it with a tomato sauce - yes you have to be in the mood. She also had a recipe for spring rolls (fried) with the Nice kind of stuffing. Cannelloni and rotolos as well of course. Jamie has a recipe for stuffed savoury pancakes - an Indian taste variation on a theme.

Roulades, mousses and soufflés. Well a roulade is like a flat mousse mixture stuffed with something (mushrooms, cheese?) and then rolled up. Again - fancy stuff. Ditto for spinach paté.

And pies. Beverley Sutherland Smith has a two layer filo pie with leeks on the bottom and spinach on the top. And Jamie also has a filo pie which is a bit simpler but very tasty looking. Click here for the recipe. And also for Calzone (also a sort of pie). Greg Malouf has a filo pie recipe too - with potatoes and pecorino. And of course the spanakopita that I am not cooking is a pie.

I won't mention salads. I'm not a real fan of salads but the recipes for salads are endless. Ditto for soups and I am being a bit lazy and going for soup. But it is that sort of day.

And lastly pasta and stir fries. Yes I know they are not at all the same sort of thing. Or are they not? In my mind they are both infinitely variable and pleasing. And spinach is a star of both. Sometimes cooked until soft sometimes just thrown in at the last minute. Top of my selection here is Jamie Oliver's veggie carbonara - very simple, very Italian and no doubt very delicious.

Well it's been fun. I always like perusing my cookery books and it is interesting to see the different areas of speciality of my favourite cooks. And what a versatile vegetable spinach is. I really didn't check out all the Asian things you can do with it. Maybe another time.