Hero Worship, and I Don’t Mean Sandwiches What’s cooking? Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce with Spinach and Mushrooms

The Kitchen Goddess before... well, just before.

Aside from my grandmother, my first hero was Davy Crockett. Brave, principled, and handsome – assuming of course that he actually looked like Fess Parker. I was 8 years old in this photo, and thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

I moved on – wrestling bears and fighting wars not being my thing – to Nancy Drew, whose strength was more mental than physical, followed by Perry Mason, Holly Golightly, and eventually working my way to actual people: Anna Quindlen, Anne Lamott, and Nora Ephron. And while I developed an interest in cooking once I began living on my own, it wasn’t until my children were firmly into adolescence that I began elevating cooks like Julia Child and Ruth Reichl to rock star status.

Except on TV, I never got to see Julia in person; but Reichl is still actively cooking and writing, and she recently showed up in Austin to promote her latest book, My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life.

She’s as delightful in person as she appears to be in her memoirs (Tender at the Bone, Comfort Me with Apples, Garlic and Sapphires) – funny, relaxed, thoughtful, and completely unpretentious. In a charming profile last September, New York Times writer Kim Severson notes that Reichl has never been to culinary school, so her knife skills are “ridiculously bad.” That fact alone endears her to me.

“I love the physical act of cooking,” Reichl says. “There are all these little secret moments in the kitchen, and if you don’t pay attention to that, you’re missing so much in life.” I get that philosophy. Think about the moment when an egg white goes from clear and gelatinous to creamy white and solid; the intricate structure of an orange segment, with all those little sacks of juice held together by threads; the satiny smooth, jewel-toned skin on an eggplant that’s so alluring I want to buy one even though it’s the only food I actively dislike.

In the Q&A part of the evening, someone asked Reichl’s favorite recipe. “Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce,” she said without a moment’s hesitation. Then she proceeded to recite the recipe. This’ll take all night, I thought. And then it was done. Four ingredients. I was so amazed, I almost forgot to write them down. But I needn’t have worried – apparently this tomato sauce is legendary.

So I made some. And then, because I am, after all, the Kitchen Goddess, I played with it. Not the actual sauce – which by the way is insanely easy (total time = 1 hour) and extremely tasty with a lovely, rich tomato flavor – but the presentation. I wanted protein and I wanted something green, so I sautéed some mushrooms and bacon with some spinach, piled the whole thing on top of some pappardelle (½-inch wide flat noodles) with Marcella’s sauce, and presto! Dinner!! Yummmm...

Maybe I’m the only cook in the world who hasn’t already made this stuff. Maybe you’ve heard about it but were waiting for the Kitchen Goddess’s seal of approval. Wait no more. One batch will easily feed 4-6, with a pound of pasta. Serve it plain for lunch, with shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano and freshly ground black pepper. Or gussy it up like the KG did with bacon, mushrooms, and spinach before you add the shavings of Parm.

Kitchen Goddess note on tomatoes: Marcella apparently called for 2 pounds of fresh tomatoes (skinned and cut into coarse pieces) or 2 cups of canned whole tomatoes. Now, you may be shocked to hear this, but the KG has other things to do with her time than skin tomatoes, especially when the canned variety are a reasonable substitute. And while many food writers – including those at The New York Times – will swear by San Marzano canned tomatoes, the tasters at Cook’s Illustrated claim that Muir Glen Organic Whole Peeled Tomatoes is the very best tasting brand, followed by Hunt’s Whole Plum Tomatoes, followed by Cento San Marzano Certified Peeled Tomatoes. Armed with this information, the KG nevertheless went with the San Marzano tomatoes. Call me a traditionalist. You should use your own judgment. The important news is that a full 28-ounce can is a perfectly acceptable substitute for the 2 cups, even though it’s closer to 3 cups. The quantities listed below are what the KG used, with outstanding results. Which just goes to show there’s more than one way to skin a cat, er, tomato.

Marcella Hazan’s Classic Tomato Sauce

Adapted from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (Alfred A. Knopf, 1992)

Ingredients
1 medium onion (about 4 ounces), sliced in half through the root
1 28-ounce can San Marzano whole tomatoes, including juices
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
pinch of kosher salt

Preparation
In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine all ingredients. Bring the mixture to a simmer and cook uncovered for 45 minutes. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon, using the spoon to mash any chunks of tomato.

Remove the onion before using the sauce. (Eat it or toss it -- there are schools of thought for both options.) Sauce can be tossed with pasta or ladled on top. You should have enough sauce to accommodate one pound of pasta.

Pasta with Tomato Sauce, Spinach, and Mushrooms

Serves 2.

Ingredients
1 recipe Classic Tomato Sauce
6 ounces pasta (your choice -- KG prefers either a wide flat noodle like pappardelle, or a shaped pasta such as fusilli or farfalle)
3 slices bacon, cut in 1-inch pieces
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
8 ounces crimini mushrooms, quartered
10 ounces fresh spinach
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

KG note: If you’ve already made the tomato sauce, the rest of this dish shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes. If you haven't made the tomato sauce, finish reading then go back up to that recipe and get it done!

Preparation
Remove bacon from the fridge 5-10 minutes before frying.

Start the pasta now, cooking according to package instructions. While you're waiting for the pasta water to boil,...

In a large skillet with a lid, cook the bacon (uncovered) over medium heat until crisp. [KG note: To keep bacon from scorching, always start it in a cold skillet.] Remove the cooked bacon to paper towels to drain, and pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the fat.

Add the butter to the pan, and turn the heat to medium-high. Once the butter foam has subsided, add the mushrooms, stirring rapidly for 4-5 minutes. The mushrooms will at first absorb all the fat, then eventually will begin to release it as the mushrooms brown. Once they’ve begun to brown, add the spinach and stir, lifting leaves from the bottom of the pan and turning them to distribute the fat throughout. Reduce the heat to medium, cover the pan, and cook 5 minutes. Test the spinach for doneness at the end of 5 minutes, and turn off the heat. (If you want the spinach to be a little more done, just leave the lid on the pan for a couple more minutes. It’s important not to overcook the spinach.) Season to taste with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.

You can serve the dish in layers as I’ve done here – pasta then tomato sauce then mushrooms and spinach – or you can add the pasta and tomato sauce to the skillet and stir together over low heat until the mixture is evenly warm. In either case, garnish with shaved or grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and the cooked bacon.

Thoughts that Run Around in My Head What’s cooking? Thai Curry Soup with Broccoli, Spinach, and Cilantro

Even after last summer’s season ended in New Jersey, my hubby and I stayed north for a month to attend a couple of weddings. With the swimming pool closed and my granddaughter in pre-school, I had some slow days, and spent much of the time transitioning to a new laptop. The process encouraged me to put at least a modest effort toward cleaning out my email files, slashing and burning the ones that went back and forth to make lunch dates from three years ago, the obligatory deluge from Facebook and LinkedIn, or sale notices from Staples or the lighting company I bought a lamp from last year. I'm not sure what the retailers are thinking about: it seems like if you just bought a lamp or a printer cartridge, you’re probably not in the market for another just yet.

Among the curiosities I noticed was a series of emails from Microsoft between August 26 and December 15 of last year, no fewer than 12 of which were reminders that my Microsoft Office “trial” (which I put into quotes because I had already bought the package through amazon.com, where it was cheaper) was either “almost over” or “ending soon.” And at least four of those were “last chances.” So I wondered if they just think I didn’t notice, or if Microsoft is like the rug dealer in my town in New Jersey who was always going out of business.

So being a writer carries its own form of curse: you notice things that completely escape most people. Or at least I think they do. Having managed to eliminate more than 1000(!) priceless missives from my email files, I decided to get some air. The fall weather in Jersey City had hit one of those beautiful, crisp periods that practically push you outside, so I headed out for a walk around the neighborhood. Along the way, I found a number of cute, new restaurants in our area. One that looked particularly interesting offered outdoor seating, which is always fun in nice weather, so I went a bit closer to check out the menu. And right near the sidewalk tables was a large sign that read, “Please ask host to be seated.” I’m not sure anyone else got the unintended meaning, but I laughed all the way home.

On a slow day, I almost always feel like cooking, and on one of those days recently, I needed to come up with something to feed my book group. As a subscriber to regular emails from epicurious.com, I’d received a recipe for a puréed broccoli soup accented with Thai green curry paste and coconut milk. Mmm... the Kitchen Goddess was intrigued. As it happened, I actually had Thai green curry paste in my fridge – the remains of a jar I’d bought to make a perfectly wonderful hors d’oeuvre, Thai Meatballs and Green Curry Sauce, that I adapted from the CIA. I took it as a sign from the universe.

Kitchen Goddess note: Let me just say here that Thai green curry paste is one of those indestructible ingredients. If you buy the canned version, once you’re done, remove what’s left and store it – refrigerated – in either a zip-lock bag with the air squeezed out, or in a tightly lidded jar. According to the sources I found online, the stuff will last “a few months,” “about 5 years,” or simply “ages,” depending on who you ask. I know I’ve had mine for a couple of years, and as long as you don’t find any mold on it, it should be fine. Mine even retained all the original heat. So glad I never threw it out; and now that I have this delightful soup recipe, I may even have to buy more.

As with any recipe from epicurious.com, the Kitchen Goddess checked the reviews before diving in. The ratings were outstanding – 4 forks (top rating) from 48 reviewers, and ALL of them would make it again. But – again as with many of the offerings on epicurious – the ratings hid a number of recommendations to “fix” the original. So this version incorporates several of the more popular suggestions. The Goddess is not a lover of spicy heat, and while the first batch she made was delicious, the spiciness very nearly set her hair on fire, so she cut way back on the curry paste for the second batch. Feel free to add extra curry paste if you are a heat freak, but do so sparingly – remember, you can always add more. The KG also found the original soup to be a bit thin, so she added some cream.

This soup is not an entrée soup. Like many Asian foods, it might fill you up, but not for long. On the other hand, it makes a great lunch, and can easily work as a side dish for dinner. Also, it is chock-a-block with green veggies, simple to cook, and damn good either hot or cold. You can ask my book group, who devoured it.

One final note: The crispy shallots are a definite enhancement. The original recipe called for store-bought (canned!) crispy shallots or onions, but that is not the Kitchen Goddess way. The real thing is ridiculously easy to produce, but you must make your own decision on that. Instructions on making your own crispy shallots follow the recipe below.

Thai Curry Soup with Broccoli, Spinach, and Cilantro

Adapted from Donna Hay Magazine, October 2015

Serves 4-6.

INGREDIENTS
2 tablespoons Thai green curry paste
1 can (13.5 ounces) lite coconut milk
3 cups chicken stock
½ teaspoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound broccoli florets, chopped
2 cups baby spinach leaves
1 cup cilantro leaves
Juice of 1 lime (about 2 tablespoons)
½ cup heavy cream (can use light cream)

Garnishes:
– Crispy shallots (see below)
– Cilantro leaves
– Shredded scallions


PREPARATION
In a large saucepan over medium heat, stir the curry paste with a wooden spoon for about 1 minute, or until fragrant. Stir in the coconut milk, chicken broth, and salt and pepper until smooth and bring the mixture to a boil. Add the broccoli, cover and adjust the heat to a hard simmer. Simmer until the broccoli is tender, about 10 minutes.

When the broccoli is tender, remove the mixture from the heat and immediately stir in the spinach leaves, the cup of cilantro, and the lime juice. Continue stirring until the spinach wilts completely.

Using either an immersion blender or a standalone blender, blend the soup 2-3 minutes or until smooth. If serving hot, return the soup to the saucepan and add the cream. Heat on medium-low until the soup is hot.

Serve in small bowls or cups garnished with cilantro, scallions, and crispy shallots.

Crispy Shallots

4-5 shallots, peeled and sliced into thin rings
¼ cup vegetable oil (or canola oil or grapeseed oil)
Sea salt, finely ground

In a 10-inch frying pan, heat the oil at medium-high until it begins to shimmer. Add the shallots, reduce the heat to medium, and cook 5-10 minutes (I know that’s a big range, but it all depends on how brown you want the shallots to get), stirring occasionally to let the shallots brown evenly. When they reach a color you like, remove them from the oil with a slotted spoon and drain them on paper towels. Dust lightly with fine sea salt and store at room temperature in an air-tight plastic container. The crispy shallots will keep that way for several days.

The Dependable Dozen: 12 Dinnerworthy Staples for Avoiding a Trip to the Store What’s cooking? Farfalle with Tuna, Artichoke Hearts, Spinach, and Capers

You arrive home after a long absence. You let yourself in the front door, kick off your shoes, and decide to unpack later, because the vibes coming from your body are calling “Feed me... feed me....”

It’s early in the evening, and, airplane food being, well... airplane food, you’ve had essentially nothing to eat since early afternoon when you turned a blind eye to your diet and ate the best you could find at the airport. But you really really don’t have the energy for a run to the grocery store, and as easy as it would be to order in pizza, that just seems like more fast food. You want something not too heavy, but with vegetables in it. Something you don’t have to work hard at creating, but something that’ll satisfy your need for real food.

You grab a glass of wine (you do have a chilled bottle available, don’t you?), sigh and stand in the door to your pantry, looking for inspiration. And maybe it’s the wine, but as you scan the shelves, some of those items start to look like the basis for... dinner.

That was the scene I faced recently on a trip to New Jersey. I hadn’t been in our condo since Christmas, so the fridge was pretty bare (jams, ketchup, pickles, and that bottle of wine). Thankfully, the Kitchen Goddess stocks the pantry – and the freezer – with any number of items that can be put to work for just the dinner I envisioned.

You, too, might find yourself yearning for real food and looking to your pantry for inspiration. You don’t even have to go on a long trip – it might just be a day when you haven’t the time or energy for a trip to the store. So here are a dozen of my tried and true fallback ingredients, followed by the lovely dish of pasta with tuna, artichoke hearts, spinach and capers that I concocted in my hour of need.

The Dependable Dozen – Staples You Can Count On to Become Dinner

This list assumes you have stuff like olive oil and a reasonable assortment of spices.

1. Tuna and/or Salmon – either the foil-packaged kind, which has less water, or oil-packed in cans, which has more flavor. Of course it’s not as good as fresh, but for fresh, you’d have to go to the store.

2. Cannellini beans – for making the classic pasta e fagioli soup or a nice, garlicky dip.

3. Diced tomatoes – for juicing up and flavoring a pasta dish.

4. Artichoke hearts – in a jar, please, where they are usually marinating in oil and spices. The canned ones taste tinny and soggy. Go for the best quality you can find. Artichokes dress up a multitude of dishes. Among other uses, they make a great dip with frozen spinach, a bit of mayo, and some Parmigiano-Reggiano, or add them to risotto.

5. Capers – those tiny things that look like soft seeds. They’re flower buds, salted and pickled, and they are great in seasoning or garnishing a dish, especially one with a Mediterranean flavor. An opened jar should be kept in the fridge.

6. Pasta – I try always to have on hand the long-cut kind (e.g., spaghetti, linguini, fettuccine) and the short-cut kind (farfalle or fusilli).

7. Marinara sauce – in a jar. My favorite is Rao’s, but Newman’s has a nice line, too.

8. Oil-cured olives – in the fridge. Oil-cured olives will keep several months, especially if steeped in oil.

9. Frozen spinach and/or frozen peas – great in soup, pasta, risotto, frittata, ... you name it.

10. Roasted garlic – you do make this stuff, don’t you? Next time, make some extra and freeze it.

11. Dried mushrooms – which will keep for years, as long as they’re kept dry and out of the light. Rehydrating is a snap, and you can rehydrate with water or broth or wine or sherry, just to keep things interesting.

12. Shallots and raw garlic – that’s right. The little buggers will stay reasonably fresh for a couple of months, as long as you keep them in a dark, cool, dry place that’s well-ventilated – but not in the fridge, where they’ll only last a couple of weeks.

So here’s the dish I put together from my pantry. Not only easy, but fast and delicious. All that I had hoped for in my travel-weary state.

Farfalle with Tuna, Artichoke Hearts, Spinach, and Capers

Serves 2 with leftovers.

8 ounces farfalle pasta (or other short-cut pasta like fusilli)
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ cup shallots, minced
1-2 large cloves garlic, minced
7-ounce foil pack albacore tuna
1 small jar marinated artichoke hearts, drained and quartered
8 ounces frozen spinach, barely thawed
1 heaping tablespoon capers (no juice)
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Cook pasta in a large pot of salted water. When the pasta is almost ready, scoop out 1 cup of the pasta water and reserve. When pasta is done to al dente state, drain and return to the pot. Cover and reserve.

While the pasta is cooking:
In a separate large skillet, set over medium-low heat, add the oil and allow it to warm. Add the shallots and cook, stirring, for about 2 minutes until soft. Add the garlic and stir 30 seconds. Add the tuna, the artichoke hearts, the spinach, and the capers, and stir to combine.

Pour in the reserved pasta water, cover and let cook long enough to heat all ingredients, about 8-10 minutes. Stir in the reserved pasta, and continue to cook until pasta is also well warmed. Season to taste with kosher salt and pepper.

Another Fishy Dishy What’s cooking? Tuna Spinach Soufflé

I’ve been cooking for my son and daughter-in-law this week – they had a baby a couple of weeks ago, and that’s what I do to help out. I figure it’s a win for everyone – they get to avoid cooking or even thinking about preparing meals, and I get to spend time with my two-year-old granddaughter and the new baby.

But it’s more exhausting than I thought it would be, with the thinking and the shopping and the prep and the clean-up, and the 40-minute drive each way. Last night, on the way home, I was stopped at a light when a guy drove up beside me to tell me my headlights were off. I turned them on and thanked him, and at that moment, the light changed. Suddenly, I noticed the Garden State Parkway entrance to my left, so I quickly turned onto the ramp and headed for home. The night was quiet, there wasn’t too much traffic, and I was listening to NPR, so I wasn’t really aware of the various road signs until at some point I thought it had been a while since I’d been driving and I should be seeing my exit number. Hmmm... this part of the road doesn’t look familiar – why is that? Did I miss my exit? As the next sign approached, I realized the numbers were going down instead of up. Then I noticed that the little compass on my rear-view mirror said “S” instead of “N.” That’s right – I had gotten onto the Parkway heading away from home – not toward it. And somehow I’d also managed to get myself onto the Express lanes, where I couldn’t exit for another 6 miles. Needless to say, it was quite late when I finally got myself turned around and back home. So even if you don’t think you’re tired, it’s a good idea to pay attention at the end of the day.

Last week, as I thought about possible menus, I recalled some of the recipes I’d prepared back when my son was still living at home. One of the ones I remember he liked was a dish I hadn’t cooked in ages. A dish the whole family really liked. And it’s a fish dish. Just right for the Lenten theme I’ve been working on. Just to see if I still liked it, I made it for myself and my hubby. Yup. Still a great dish. I found the recipe in a booklet that came with a set of soufflé dishes I bought so long ago that I think the booklet is the only thing left. Just goes to show that good ideas are everywhere. So here you are.

Kitchen Goddess note: Please do not be put off because this is a soufflé. Soufflés are not hard, and there’s a wonderful lightness to the texture that comes from the whipped egg whites. ❶ You make a roux. That’s the butter and flour mixture that you cook for a couple of minutes until it loses that floury taste. ❷ Stir in milk until the sauce thickens and add egg yolks. ❸ Add your flavoring ingredients – in this case the tuna and spinach and spices. ❹ Whip the egg whites until just stiff – the point at which you lose the shine and have nice, elegant peaks. The more you try this, the better you’ll get. ❺ Fold the flavoring into the whipped egg whites. Fold gently, using a large rubber spatula. Lay the beaten whites on top of the flavoring mixture, and use the spatula to slice down through the middle of the whites, then scoop into the batter and fold one half up over the other and into the batter in a looping motion. Turn the bowl a quarter turn, and repeat. The key is to go slowly and gently, and not to overdo it.

Because the flavoring ingredients in this soufflé are heavy and dense, the soufflé won’t rise as much as a dessert soufflé or a cheese soufflé, but it will rise some, and the top will brown. Serve it with dinner rolls or French bread and a salad or some other green veggie. It’s light, airy, and delicious. Also, it works equally well with salmon and spinach.

One final note. Dear readers, do not turn up your noses at the packaged tuna. Feel free to try this with fresh tuna, cooked and chopped finely, then let me know how it went. The Kitchen Goddess has only ever used packaged tuna or salmon. But get the kind that’s vacuum-packed in those foil pouches, and get the tuna that’s been packaged in oil. You just don’t save enough in calories to overcome the difference in flavor.

Tuna-Spinach Soufflé

Serves 2-3.

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons flour
¾ cup milk (not skim)
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon dry mustard
½ teaspoon grated lemon rind
3 large egg yolks
½ cup cooked or canned tuna (6-oz pouch, squeezed dry then flaked)
½ cup frozen chopped spinach (a 10-oz package, microwaved about 7 minutes until not quite done, and squeezed dry)
3 egg whites, beaten until just stiff

Preheat oven to 350º.

In a large saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour. Whisk over medium-low heat for about 2 minutes, then gradually whisk in the milk. Stir over medium heat until the sauce thickens and begins to bubble.

Remove the mixture from the heat and stir in the salt, mustard, lemon rind, and egg yolks. Add the tuna and spinach and blend well. Let this mixture cool to room temperature while you whip the egg whites.

Using a mixer fitted with a wire whisk, whip the egg whites on high until they lose their shine and produce stiff peaks. (If you have the energy, you can instead whip them by hand using a wire whisk, but I don’t know anyone like that.) Gently stir a large spoonful of the whipped egg whites into the tuna/spinach mix, then add the rest of the whites and gently fold them in.

Pour the mixture into an ungreased 1½-quart soufflé dish and bake at 350º for 35-40 minutes or until puffed and brown. Serve at once. (Unless you are the Kitchen Goddess and have to first take a photo.)

This recipe can easily be doubled. If you double it, bake at 375º for 50 minutes.

Fancy That! Day 3 of the Veggie Marathon What’s cooking? Spinach and Sautéed Mushrooms

In an interview on NPR the other day, I heard my favorite poet, Billy Collins, describe poetry as “the spinach of literature.”

That’s how bad it’s gotten for poor spinach. Despite its position near – if not at – the top of the list of the world’s healthiest foods, spinach suffers disparaging remarks from all sorts of otherwise good people.

■ “I detest spinach because of its utterly amorphous character....the only good, noble and edible thing to be found in that sordid nourishment is the sand.” – Salvador Dali, The Secret Life of Salvador Dali

■ “I don’t like spinach, and I’m glad I don’t, because if I liked it I’d eat it, and I just hate it.” – Clarence Darrow

■ “On the subject of spinach: divide into little piles. Rearrange again into new piles. After five or six maneuvers, sit back and say you are full.” – Delia Ephron, How To Eat Like A Child

■ “It’s broccoli, dear.” “I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it.” – cartoon caption for The New Yorker by E.B.White

But consider this:

1. One cup of cooked spinach provides 10 times your daily need for vitamin K, 3 times the daily need for vitamin A, and more than 25% of the daily need for vitamin C, manganese, folate, magnesium, and iron.

2. That folate I mentioned? It prevents spina bifida in developing fetuses, and has been shown to reduce the rate of age-related cognitive decline. (I’m sorry, what was I saying?...) Folate (folic acid, or vitamin B9) also reduces blood pressure.

3. A recent study of the impact of vegetable intake on the risk of prostate cancer found that only spinach delivered significant protection. Other diseases spinach helps to prevent: heart disease, osteoporosis, colon cancer, ovarian cancer, and arthritis.

So what can we as cooks do to help our precious families and friends beyond the standard dictum to “Eat your spinach, dear. It’s good for you.” (I actually heard my grandmother say that to my mother when my mother was in her late 50s. It’s hard to stop mothering.)

Well, first, we can cook it not so much. Fresh spinach salads are great, but the Kitchen Goddess is all about cooking vegetables this week. Just not cooking them too much. Cooking spinach will help get rid of the oxalic acid in the leaves, which not only helps you absorb the minerals better – it also makes the leaves taste sweeter.

The best way to cook spinach is to steam it. If you prefer to boil it, do so for only a minute, so you don’t lose all that good folate. And the Kitchen Goddess finds that if you pair your spinach with something really yummy, like sautéed mushrooms, it all gets eaten – even by people who might otherwise just push it around the plate.

Kitchen Goddess note: Spinach can’t be cooked in advance. On the other hand, you’re only cooking it for a minute. But you can cook the mushrooms an hour or two earlier and reheat them in a sauté pan before you cook the spinach. And you can wash the spinach ahead of time – just make sure to lightly rinse the leaves again right before you cook them so that there will be some water on the leaves.

Spinach and Sautéed Mushrooms

2-2½ pounds fresh spinach
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup finely chopped yellow onion
1-1½ pounds mushrooms (white button or crimini), cleaned and stems trimmed; mushrooms left whole if small, sliced thickly or quartered if large
salt
freshly grated nutmeg

Garnish: lemon wedges

If you are using mature spinach, soak well to remove any sand, and discard the stems; if using baby spinach, remove as many of the long stems as you have the patience for and lightly rinse the leaves before cooking.

In a medium sauté pan over medium-low heat, melt the butter and oil. Add the onion and sauté until the onion is translucent, about 2 minutes. Raise the heat to medium-high, and when the oil is very hot, add the mushrooms. Sauté the mushrooms, using a combination of techniques that include stirring and tossing the mushrooms and shaking the pan, for 4-5 minutes. At first, the mushrooms will absorb all the fat, then after 2-3 minutes, they’ll release some of that fat and begin to brown. Once they have browned lightly, remove from heat. Season to taste with salt and nutmeg, and cover to keep warm.

In a larger skillet – one with a cover – place the spinach (with just the water that clings to the leaves). Add 2-3 pinches of salt and some nutmeg. Cover and cook over medium-high heat, turning the leaves a couple of times, until just wilted, about a minute. Drain in a colander, pressing the leaves gently with the back of a wooden spoon to release excess liquid. Fluff up the leaves with your fingers.

In a warmed serving dish, place the spinach around the edge and spoon the mushrooms into the center. Garnish with lemon wedges.

Serves 6-8.

Kitchen Goddess final note: If you have any of this left over, throw it all – mushrooms and spinach – into a skillet with a small can of diced tomatoes and a little tomato paste, heat it up, and stir in some pasta. Cover it all with finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, and call it dinner.