Creamed spinach

by | May 8, 2020 | Vegetable dishes

Spinach, this leafy green vegetable that originated in Persia is considered very healthy as it’s loaded with nutrients and antioxidants. Despite its health benefits most of the Hungarians aren’t on friendly terms with this vegetable, it belongs to the group of divisive foods people either love or hate.

There are many ways to prepare spinach, but in Hungary it’s served solely as a sauce with fried eggs or french toast. Creamed spinach can be made from fresh or frozen spinach, the cooking method however differs depending on the spinach type.

Creamed spinach
Creamed spinach – photo: zserbo.com

Ingredients:

  • 500 g (~1 lb) fresh spinach leaves or frozen chopped spinach
  • 50 g (~1 3/4 oz) butter
  • 3-4 garlic cloves
  • 2 heaping tbsp flour
  • 350 ml (~1 1/2 cups) milk
  • salt and pepper to taste

With fresh spinach leaves:

Wash the spinach leaves, remove any tough stalks, then chop them finely. Heat up butter in a deep pan and add the chopped spinach leaves in batches. Stir constantly until the leaves collapse and wilt.

Add finely chopped garlic. Sprinkle flour over the spinach, stir and cook for 1-2 minutes. Gradually pour in milk while stirring, bring the sauce to the boil and cook until it thickens. Season with salt and pepper. You may puree some or all of the sauce with a hand blender (optional). Serve the spinach sauce with fried eggs.

With frozen chopped spinach:

Heat up butter in a deep pan. Add flour and finely chopped garlic, and make a blond roux while stirring continuously. Once the roux is done, in a fine stream pour in milk, then add frozen spinach. Bring it to the boil while stirring, season with salt and pepper, and cook until the sauce thickens.

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Hungarian cottage cheese

This is what Hungarian túró looks like

You often ask me what kind of cottage cheese (or curd cheese or farmer's cheese - call it what you want) I use in the recipes. In Hungary the store-bought cottage cheese is dry and crumbly as you can see in the picture. So if a recipe calls for túró, I mean this type. If you can't obtain túró, you can try to make your own from whole milk. Click on the link below.

Metric system vs cup

In Hungary metric units are in use, all the recipes on this website are based on this system, so a kitchen scale is necessary. Since I’m not familiar with cup as a measurement unit, I convert grams to cups by using an online converter. The values in brackets, therefore, are only approximate volumes, so, please, double-check them before you start cooking.

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