Ingredient: Spinach
Category: Vegetables
Season: May to October
Spinach (Spinacia oleracea) is a flowering plant in the family of Amaranthaceae. It is native to central and southwestern Asia.
There are 3 basic types of Spinach:
Savoy has dark green, crinkly and curly leaves. It is the type sold in fresh bunches in most supermarkets. One heirloom variety of savoy is Bloomsdale, which is somewhat resistant to bolting.
Flat/smooth leaf spinach has broad smooth leaves that are easier to clean than savoy. This type is often grown for canned and frozen spinach, as well as soups, baby foods, and processed foods.
Semi-savoy is a hybrid variety with slightly crinkled leaves. It has the same texture as savoy, but it is not as difficult to clean. It is grown for both fresh market and processing. Five Star is a widely grown variety and has good resistance to running up to seed.
In Australia, a significant percentage of people erroneously identify chard (locally known as silverbeet) as spinach, despite the fact that both spinach and chard are labelled appropriately in stores
Spinach is sold: Loose, bunched, in pre-packaged bags, canned, or frozen.
Fresh spinach loses much of its nutritional value with storage of more than a few days, refrigeration slows this effect to about eight days, spinach will lose most of its folate and carotenoid content, so for longer storage it is frozen, cooked and frozen, or canned.
Storage in the freezer can be for up to eight months.
Safety concerns:
Reheating spinach leftovers may cause the formation of poisonous compounds by certain bacteria that thrive on prepared nitrate-rich foods, such as spinach and many other green vegetables.
These bacteria can convert the nitrates into nitrites , which may be especially harmful to infants younger than six months.
The nitrate-converting enzymes produced by the bacteria can convert even more at elevated temperatures during the second heating.
For older children and adults, small concentrations of nitrites are harmless, although formation of nitrosamine compounds from the nitrites could be of concern for adults as well.
Very green and very good for you, spinach is packed with vitamin C.
What you need to be most aware of is that spinach contains a great deal of water, so what looks like a huge amount won't be when it's cooked.
To prepare spinach:
Fresh spinach can be rather dusty or muddy.
The best way to deal with this is to pick out and discard any damaged or brown leaves and remove any tough stalks.
Fill the sink with cold water, then plunge the spinach in the water and swirl the leaves around.
Do the above, in two or three changes of water.
Let it all drain in a colander, shaking it well over the sink.
Young spinach leaves can be wiped and used raw in a delicious salad.
To cook spinach:
Absolutely no water ever.
For 1 lb (450 g) of spinach leaves.
Melt ½ oz (10 g) of butter in a large, thick-based saucepan,
Keep the heat at medium and pack the spinach leaves in.
Add some salt, put on a tight-fitting lid and cook for 25/ 30 seconds.
Take the lid off, the spinach has collapsed down into the butter.
Give it a stir, so that the top leaves get pushed down to the base of the pan.
Replace the lid and give it another 30 seconds, shaking the pan a couple of times.
The whole operation takes less than 2 minutes.
Drain the spinach in a colander, pressing it with a saucer to remove any excess water.
Return it to the pan and add seasoning.
Spinach is enhanced beautifully with a little cream or crème fraîche.
It has an affinity with nutmeg, season with salt and freshly milled black pepper and a few gratings of whole nutmeg.
Spinach as a vegetable goes beautifully with smoked haddock.
To serve spinach as a vegetable, allow 8 oz (225 g) per person.
The name spinach has been applied to a number of leaf vegetables, both related and unrelated to spinach :
Related species:
Chard (Beta vulgaris, Amaranthaceae), also known as spinach beet or perpetual spinach.
Orache (Atriplex species, Amaranthaceae), also called "French spinach" or "mountain spinach".
Good King Henry (Chenopodium bonus-henricus, Amaranthaceae) and other Chenopodium species, also called "Lincolnshire spinach".
In Indonesia, the word bayam is applied both to certain species of amaranth commonly eaten as a leafy vegetable , and to spinach, which is rarely seen.
Unrelated species:
New Zealand spinach (Tetragonia, Aizoaceae ).
Water spinach ( Convolvulaceae ).
Malabar spinach ( Basellaceae ).
The greens of various nightshade , legume and cucurbit species are also known as spinach , wild spinach, African spinach, "Thermadorian spinach" or morogo (in Southern Africa ). |