As prev mentioned, growing up creamed spinach was always one of my favs… unfortunately parents usually served it with things like pork chops (which I was not a fan of).
Present day: my creamed spinach starts with rendering bacon with onions/shallots, adding flour to that fat for a roux, and then milk or cream for a bacon fat/onion bechamel, finished with chopped spinach, and seasoned to taste.
My favorite places for this are (in no particular order):
1.) Topped with steamed clams.
2.) Topped with brothed mussels.
3.) Over Sole meunière, topped with crab meat (ideally shelled AKC legs).*
4.) Over fresh fettuccine with chopped tasso, topped with pan fried oysters.*
5.) Over oysters on the half shell, topped with Parmigiano-Reggiano.
6.) On the side with grilled marinated swordfish.
*Ok maybe these are my favs. (c;
Yeah… I’m a seafood guy. But what are your fav preps for this amazing side?
Definitely a green dish with some creaminess, along with the onions and bacon. I’ll make it a bit creamier for the fettuccine, but not by much.
Frozen chopped spinach works exceedingly well (blanched, drained, and dried - squeezed in a towel). Fresh is good too, but is a bit more work… and frankly I don’t notice much (or maybe any) difference.
One of my favorite dishes. I’ll take it any way I can get it: fresh or frozen, roux or cream.
Lately I’ve been making it from fresh since it’s available now, and with a roux - I think fresh is just slightly better than frozen, and while cream is certainly more decedant than roux, I usually go for the latter for ease of being able to pre-prep.
I prefer a “green dish with some creaminess”. Alliums always included. A squeeze of lemon is a nice option. I like the idea of bacon (or at least bacon fat), and will have to give that a try.
Our “Manly Steak Maven” makes both exemplary grilled ribeyes and creamed spinach at home, throwing in obligatory potato dish of some sort . . . . Spinach can be either fresh or frozen, the latter working out well when defrosted and water squeezed out to make room for cream added after spinach is warmed and stirred around in butter sauteed shallots. Fresh or frozen, it appears from what we observed is that the method depends on sufficiently drying the spinach without ruining it for the cream? Ratio seems to be as much cream as the spinach can absorb.
All that said, we once were guests at Gallaghers for our hosts’ ritual before event dinner. The table was horrified when one of the party took a forkful of creamed spinach that included a piece of thick plastic that we surmised was part of the dish’s packaging.
I posed the question because it’s struck me while using only fresh spinach of late that the frozen I typically reach for tastes quite different… metallic? (First I thought about it was when Maangchi specifically called for fresh, not-baby spinach for the classic banchan during that COTM.)
And yet, it’s such a convenience that I almost always have frozen on hand.
(I use TJs organic frozen - curious why you hate it: stems?)
Yes, lots of stems, can’t remember the details now.
When I buy that big container of fresh baby spinach at Costco (cooks down to maybe 2 cups!) I have to remove all the stems. Same with TJ Super Spinach Salad.
Went there many times with my dad (and mom too ). He had been taken there as a boy by his father. (We weren’t from NY). Oh no from the plastic, but on the other hand, I’m not surprised.
