No. 1087 Spinach
Is a very wholesome and digestible vegetable, excellent for invalids, but still more so for those in good health, because an invalid can only have it plain-dressed, whilst a person in health can enjoy it in any of the tasty ways in which it is dressed. Pick and wash it very clean in three or four waters, for as nothing is worse than spinach when gritty, so likewise there is nothing more troublesome to get quite clean, from its growing so near the earth; boil in plenty of salt and water about a quarter of an hour, then drain it through a sieve, and squeeze quite dry with a cloth, chop very fine (which I consider is better than passing through a wire sieve), put it in a stewpan with half a pound of fresh butter, pepper, salt, half a teaspoonful of sugar, and a little grated nutmeg, stir five minutes over a sharp fire, pour it out upon your dish, and serve with croutons of fried bread round; the above proportion is for half a sieve.