Creamed Spinach Pâté

From Vegetarian Cooking, The Australian Women’s Weekly Home Library, ACP Publishing, 1992.

I saw English spinach in the greengrocer’s and bought a bunch on the spur of the moment. Then I set out to look for what to do with it

After it was all washed, I cut all of the leaf ends off the root section and cut them roughly into pieces. These went into a saucepan with a very small amount of water and ½ vegetable stock cube. I grated fresh nutmeg on top and then turned up the heat under the saucepan to bring it all to the boil. The heat was then reduced to a simmer and the spinach cooked for about 20 minutes until all the moisture had evaporated.

While the spinach was cooking I chopped ½ onion and one garlic clove. These were sautéed in butter until soft.

Now I took ½ teaspoon cornflour and a teaspoon of water, mixed them together and stirred them into the spinach until it had thickened. The heat was turned off and the onion mix went in with about 2 tablespoons cream. The mixture now went into the blender and was pureed. It was spooned into a ramekin and placed in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.

I served it on toasted sourdough bread. It had a strong savoury taste somewhat different from the spinachy flavour I had expected. This was due no doubt to the use of the stock cube. A useful and different dip-type dish.

Two days later I was making a fettucini dish with peas and green beans and wanted a pesto to go with it. I took the remainder of the pâté, added a little olive oil with some basil and gave it a burst in the blender. It made a very useful pesto.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔