Victorian Recipe... for Food

Whoa-ho! A rarity! Here's not a beauty recipe, but a fashionable food recipe of the mid-19th century... taken from my blog over at I Eat Alone.

I call it Spinach Victoriana, adapted from a 19th century Miss Leslie recipe. It's essentially a creamed spinach served with puff pastry. From time to time I find interesting food recipes (historical cookery is another hobby of mine) -- let me know if you might be interested in more of this sort of thing on this blog.

To make the dish, modern style, you need:

• Puff pastry --- (I used half a 212 gram package and followed the baking instructions on the label, which was 200 degrees C or about 375 F, and just checked on it regularly to see when it was brown enough.) 
• 1/3 c frozen spinach 
• 1/8 c white sauce 
• 1/4 tsp sugar 
• 1/8 tsp salt 

To Make: cook up your pastry. Meanwhile, microwave the frozen spinach till hot and thawed. Drain off any excess liquid. Sprinkle over with the salt and sugar and stir in hot white sauce (reheat the sauce in advance if necessary.) Spoon your spinach mixture over the puff pastry piece.

Of course, if you want to make it the original way, you can use the authentic recipe:

FRENCH SPINACH.—Having picked them from the stalks, wash the leaves carefully in two or three cold waters, till they are quite free from grit. Put the spinach into a sauce-pan of hot water, in which a very small portion of salt has been boiled. There must be sufficient water to allow the spinach to float. Stir it frequently, that all the leaves may be equally done. Let it boil for a quarter of an hour. Then take it out, lay it in a sieve, and drain it well; pressing it thoroughly with your hands. Next chop it as fine as possible. For a large dish of spinach, put two ounces of butter into a stew-pan; dredge in a table-spoonful of flour and four or five table-spoonfuls of rich cream, mixed with a tea-spoonful of powdered loaf-sugar. Mix all well, and when they have come to a boil, add, gradually, the spinach. Stew it about ten minutes, (stirring it frequently,) till the superfluous moisture is all absorbed. Then serve it up very hot, garnishing it all round with leaves of puff-paste, that have been handsomely formed with a tin cutter, and are fresh from the oven.