Spinach

Épinards

Appears in

By Richard Olney

Published 1974

  • About
If bought unpicked-over and unwashed, tear the spinach leaves free of the stems, soak them in a basin of water to dissolve clinging soil and then wash thoroughly at least three times, swirling them in a large basin of water and transferring them by handsful to another basin of water—don’t pour the lot into a colander before transferring it to another basin of water; you will only collect all the dirt with the leaves. Lift the leaves from their final rinse water to a colander to drain.
It is often said that spinach should be cooked “dry”—that is to say, only in the bit of washing water that clings to the leaves or, at most, with a couple of tablespoonsful of water added—and that to cook it in a large quantity of water entails a serious loss of flavor and vitamins; this method requires a longer cooking time, a large part of the spinach is subjected to a sort of stewing process rather than to a rapid contact with boiling water, and, although the draining liquid may be relatively small in quantity, it will be a thick, black concentration of all the vegetable’s goodness that is discarded.