Tasty Tuesday: Spinach & Eggs #vegetable #recipe #historical #American #whatsfordinner

Time for Tasty Tuesday and the first of my adapted recipes from The Art of Cookery! The original recipe was called Stewed Spinach and Eggs. But it’s more than just those two ingredients. Here’s the complete recipe from the 1802 edition:

Pick and wash your spinach very clean, put it into a saucepan, with a little salt; cover it close, shake the pan often; when it is just tender, and whilst it is green, throw it into a sieve to drain. Lay it in your dish. In the mean time have a stew pan of water boiling. Break as many eggs into cups as you would poach. When the water boils put in the eggs, have an egg-slice ready to take them out with, lay them on the spinach, and garnish the dish with Seville orange cut into quarters, with melted butter in a cup.

So the first thing I had to do was interpret the intent behind the cooking and figure out what exactly the finished dish would look like.

It’s obvious what “pick and wash” the greens means, and then to put them in a saucepan – it would have to be a big pot by our standards with a lid. I chose a large soup pot with a lid.

Then to drain it in a “sieve” or colander before putting it in a “dish” of some kind. I imagined the finished dish to present nicest on a small platter but any kind of bowl or casserole dish would suit.

Then in a “stew pan” break eggs into cups to poach them, or boil them until done to your liking. Hmm, I thought. Hubby and I are not fond of poached eggs, so that had to change. Hard boiled eggs would also serve the purpose, and allow for slicing to provide even more color and thus improve the presentation while staying close to the taste combinations.

Then lay the cooked eggs on the spinach and add quartered “Seville” oranges, which I discovered are known for being bitter/sour. I can’t get Seville oranges easily in my area, anyway, so I’d have to adapt that as well. I chose a lovely navel orange and used it to provide a contrast to the other flavors.

I also do not cook with salt due to previous health concerns (diabetes and heart disease for my dad, and kidney stones for my hubby), so that would also need to go. Then the bit of melted butter to dip the green into. I wasn’t sure about the butter being needed either, but I could see some kind of moisture was needed to cook the spinach greens. So instead of butter and salt, I used some extra virgin olive oil and minced garlic. By cooking the greens this way, the need to drain the spinach was eliminated. I simply spooned the cooked greens onto the platter and garnished with the eggs and orange.

Here’s my adapted recipe for Spinach and Eggs. We really enjoyed it, and I hope you will also!

Ingredients:

2 pkgs 6 oz each baby spinach leaves

1 T olive oil

Minced garlic to taste

2 hard boiled eggs, sliced

1 naval orange, segmented

Instructions:

Heat the first three ingredients in a large covered pot until the spinach is tender.

Arrange spinach on a platter. Add sliced eggs and orange segments. Enjoy!

While I don’t always add the orange and eggs, I have found I really enjoy cooking the spinach this way every time. The greens taste so fresh and yummy with all natural ingredients that are easy to purchase at my local grocery.

What do you think? Sound good to you? Do you think any other greens would also work in this kind of recipe?

Next week, Potato Pudding, which isn’t what you’re probably thinking it is… Until then!

Betty

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Emily Sullivan’s greatest fear is dying in childbirth, as did her twin sister and their mother. Then she’s thrown in a loyalist prison for her privateering father’s raids on the British, and her accuser—a former beau—promises to recant if she will marry him.

Frank Thomson always loved Emily despite her refusal to return his affections. A patriot spy posing as a loyalist officer, when Frank learns of Emily’s plight, he challenges her accuser to a duel.

Freed from prison, Emily ponders returning the affections of her rescuer—the only man she’s ever loved and who married her twin to save the Sullivan family’s reputation. But Frank cannot afford to be discovered. For the sake of young America, he must deliver his secrets.

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