Creamless Creamed Spinach

Spinach: weirdly, I love it!

Especially I love it prepared in the Julia Child mode. Julia would quickly parboil a few fistfuls of fresh spinach — dump it in boiling water and then forthwith pour it into a colander or strainer. Then she said to wrap it in paper towels or a clean white cotton towel and wring the water out of it; then toss it on the cutting board and chop it up. Next, melt a ton of butter in a pan, add the spinach, cover, and allow to sit over very low heat while you go on about your business preparing the rest of the meal, at least 20 minutes or half an hour. Keep the heat pretty darn low, especially if you’ll be preoccupied any longer than 20 or 30 minutes; maybe stir now and again. Season with salt & pepper.

Well, heaven help us, the result is mind-boggling: the spinach more or less absorbs the butter so you end up with something indescribably buttery and delicious.

I’ve learned you can do that, much faster and with far less work, by using a good brand of frozen spinach. Get either the leaf or the chopped variety, as you please. Melt butter, pour the frozen spinach into the pan, stir around a bit until it defrosts, cover, and continue as above.

Now this is good enough…but the other day I accidentally learned how to make it IN-FREAKING-CREDIBLE!

Craving some creamed spinach, I stuck my head in the fridge and discovered, not surprisingly, no cream. But there was a giant package of Costco yogurt. Heh heh…here’s how this came down:

Acquire:

1/4 of a fresh onion
a handful of pine nuts (probably optional)
a package of frozen spinach
a cube of butter
a little nutmeg
a little cumin
no-fat or  low-fat plain yogurt
a large saucepan or small frying pan, with lid

Chop the onion. Doesn’t take very much. I had a red onion on hand and used about 1/4 of it. You could add garlic, too, if you wanted.

Melt about 1/4 to 1/3 of the cube of butter over medium heat. Gently cook the onion and pine nuts in till the onion has softened nicely, maybe even begun to caramelize, and the pine nuts are starting to brown. If you’re using garlic, chop or mince the garlic and add it toward the end of this process. Stir now and again.

Open the package of frozen spinach and dump in as much as you think you can eat, which is likely to be more than you expect because this is amazingly delicious. Do not defrost it first. Do not cook it first. Just dump it in frozen. Stir around as it defrosts.

Add another 1/4 cube of butter. Oh, maybe even more, if that makes you feel happy. Sprinkle the spinach with a little nutmeg. Add a little cumin — more cumin than nutmeg, I’d say. Not a lot — maybe 1/2 teaspoon or so. Just sprinkle to taste. Stir. Cover. Turn heat to “low.” Go away.

Prepare the rest of your dinner. Occasionally check on the spinach and stir a bit, but otherwise leave it covered and simmering away.

Right before you’re ready to serve it up, turn off the heat. Remove the pan from the burner. Give it a second to stop bubbling, if it’s doing so. Then add yogurt to taste. I probably put in about a quarter to half a cup. Stir. Add a little salt and a little fresh-ground pepper.

And serve it up.

This turns out to be bizarrely delicious. Why, I could not say. But it is truly extremely good.

Image: Victor M. Vicente Selvas. Public domain.