Spinach and Tomatoes (Hot)
Prepare the spinach as in the preceding recipe. Bake six small tomatoes carefully in the oven with a piece of butter on each. When ready arrange the spinach in a dish in the form of a border, place the tomatoes in the centre and serve.
Épinards (Spinach) à la Crême (Hot)
Wash the spinach in six or seven waters, so as to prevent its being gritty; put it in a saucepan on the fire, with a very little water and salt; when done strain very dry and chop it up very fine. Warm 2 oz. of butter in a stewpan, put the spinach in, stir till the moisture quite evaporates, then add a very little salt, a tiny pinch of sugar (a very little nutmeg, if liked), a pinch of flour, and 1 large tablespoonful of cream, and let the whole simmer for a quarter of an hour. Then put through a sieve and keep hot. In the meantime, fry in fat some bread cut into fingers, about 2½ in. long and ½ in. square, and plant them in little rows all over the spinach when dished.
Spinach cooked thus is delicious and a very different matter from the stringy green mass generally served.
Turnip Tops à la Crême
Cook as in the previous recipe for spinach.
Almost any greens, including cabbage and Brussels-sprouts, are excellent when served thus.
Asparagus.
Asparagus is really almost at its best served plain boiled with oiled butter; but when it first comes in, the big kind, which is best for boiling, is rather expensive, and few people seem to know how good the more “grasslike” kind is if treated properly.