The white sauce way. Yes, it’s a drag to make white sauce, but what you end up with here is creamed spinach of extraordinary solace and luxury.
Recipe information
Yield
enough for 4
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
Put the milk in a saucepan with the onion, bay leaf, and black peppercorns. Bring to a boil, then decrease the heat to low and cook for 10 minutes for the aromatics to do their stuff.
Step 2
Discard the very toughest spinach stalks, then cook the leaves in a lidded pan with a film of water in the bottom. They should be tender in just a minute or 2, maybe less. Drain and cool under cold running water, squeeze thoroughly but gently to remove most of the water, then chop finely.
Step 3
Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed nonstick saucepan, stir in the flour, and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring so that it doesn’t burn. Whisk in the warm milk; you don’t need the aromatics, they have done their work. When the sauce starts to thicken, decrease the heat to a low simmer and let it bubble gently for a good 15 minutes. An occasional stir, taking care to get right in the corners, will prevent it burning.
Step 4
Stir in the cream and chopped spinach, then finish with salt, pepper, and a fine grating of nutmeg.
