Samphire With Spinach
I have tried the standard samphire dish before; boiling it, then dressing it with butter and lemon juice:
The result was less than encouraging. The samphire was stringy and salty, and the dish much too watery.
I think the problem was partly the age of the samphire - It did seem to have very fat and fibrous stems - perhaps better to avoid samphire too late into the season (not much after August)
In any case it seems each samphire sprig needs individual examination and cleaning, then to be given a good tug from the tapered end to find the point at which the tender shoots pull away from their woody stems. You can usually feel this with your fingers, and pop the succulent branchlets away from any hard stringy cores.
All of this makes the preparation a tedious and time-consuming business, best scheduled early. Perhaps earlier in the season when they are young, you could get away without it, try nibbling on a few of the thicker stalks to test them out.
It's easy to get spinach wrong and over-wilt it so that you lose all its texture and accidentally turn out a watery creamed version.
To get the best out of your spinach: remove the tough stalks, wash the spinach thoroughly in two or three changes of water, dry thoroughly (preferably using a salad spinner) and then only steam/fry until it is on the point of wilting. That way you should retain some of its leafy quality.
The samphire is easy to overcook too - it might be better steaming it (though this might not leach away enough of its saltiness), or blanching it a couple of times rather than actually boiling it.
My second attempt was much more encouraging - to start with this samphire was smaller more tender, and much more delicately flavoured, but the dish still ended up being quite wet.
Although the taste of samphire and spinach go extremely well together, the wetness of cooked spinach is possibly not ideal.
Attempting to make a sort of spinach and olive oil hollandaise sauce to mix with the samphire is a complete disaster, but serving the samphire on a purée of spinach with lemon juice, mustard and walnut oil works reasonably well.
Best so far was the samphire dressed with spinach oil.
I think the problem was partly the age of the samphire - It did seem to have very fat and fibrous stems - perhaps better to avoid samphire too late into the season (not much after August)
In any case it seems each samphire sprig needs individual examination and cleaning, then to be given a good tug from the tapered end to find the point at which the tender shoots pull away from their woody stems. You can usually feel this with your fingers, and pop the succulent branchlets away from any hard stringy cores.
All of this makes the preparation a tedious and time-consuming business, best scheduled early. Perhaps earlier in the season when they are young, you could get away without it, try nibbling on a few of the thicker stalks to test them out.
It's easy to get spinach wrong and over-wilt it so that you lose all its texture and accidentally turn out a watery creamed version.
To get the best out of your spinach: remove the tough stalks, wash the spinach thoroughly in two or three changes of water, dry thoroughly (preferably using a salad spinner) and then only steam/fry until it is on the point of wilting. That way you should retain some of its leafy quality.
The samphire is easy to overcook too - it might be better steaming it (though this might not leach away enough of its saltiness), or blanching it a couple of times rather than actually boiling it.
My second attempt was much more encouraging - to start with this samphire was smaller more tender, and much more delicately flavoured, but the dish still ended up being quite wet.
Although the taste of samphire and spinach go extremely well together, the wetness of cooked spinach is possibly not ideal.
Attempting to make a sort of spinach and olive oil hollandaise sauce to mix with the samphire is a complete disaster, but serving the samphire on a purée of spinach with lemon juice, mustard and walnut oil works reasonably well.
Best so far was the samphire dressed with spinach oil.
Samphire With Spinach
side veg vegan
Make sure your samphire is young and tender, or you will regret it!
Serves 4
Ingredients
200g Fresh young (small) marsh samphire
200g Spinach (about double the volume of samphire)
Olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
Method
200g Spinach (about double the volume of samphire)
Olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
Wash the samphire thoroughly and pick through to remove any obviously thick, fibrous or wilted stalks.
I used about twice the volume of spinach to samphire, which seemed about right.
Bring a large pot of (unsalted) water to the boil and simmer the samphire for a couple of minutes until tender.
Heat the olive oil in a large pot I used butter here, but I think the olive oil might be a more complementary flavour and wilt the spinach until it collapses. Add the lemon juice and allow the extra liquid to steam off.
Finally add the samphire back to the pot, mix and heat through.
Serve
I used about twice the volume of spinach to samphire, which seemed about right.
Bring a large pot of (unsalted) water to the boil and simmer the samphire for a couple of minutes until tender.
It's easy to overcook the samphire, but it's nice to get rid of some of the saltiness - a couple of blanchings might work better...
Drain the samphire and set aside.Heat the olive oil in a large pot I used butter here, but I think the olive oil might be a more complementary flavour and wilt the spinach until it collapses. Add the lemon juice and allow the extra liquid to steam off.
Finally add the samphire back to the pot, mix and heat through.
Serve
This is a very tasty combination, but ends up very watery.
I think I need to experiment with different ways of creaming the spinach instead, then adding the samphire.
I'm looking for something of the consistency of hollandaise.
Samphire with Creamed Spinach
side veg vegan
100g spinach
juice of ½ lemon
½ teaspoon English mustard
walnut oil
Method
juice of ½ lemon
½ teaspoon English mustard
walnut oil
Wilt about 100g spinach in a large pan with a smear of olive oil,
add the juice of half a lemon, heat through, then purée this up with a hand blender.
Next add half a teaspoon of English mustard, a drizzle of olive oil, then rather more walnut oil and blend the lot.
Cook the samphire, drain and serve on a puddle of the creamed spinach.
Cook the samphire, drain and serve on a puddle of the creamed spinach.
A very tasty, and slightly (but not very) thickened spinach purée that goes nicely with the samphire.
The only complaint I would have is that adding the oil takes the edge off the glorious green colour of the pure spinach purée.
The purée did hold its colour well though, only browning slightly on reheating.
The purée did hold its colour well though, only browning slightly on reheating.
Samphire With Spinach Oil
side veg vegan
Method
Blanch the samphire. Or better yet, double blanch it: blanch first then immediately plunge into cold water, then keep until almost time to eat, and blanch again.
Drain the samphire thoroughly, return it to the pan and dress the hot samphire with spinach oil.
Serve with a nice drizzle of spinach oil around and about. To look pretty.
Serve with a nice drizzle of spinach oil around and about. To look pretty.
This is seeming like the ideal way of serving samphire - as long as you drain it properly it doesn't end up watery at all,
and if you want a hint of lemon flavour you could always add a little lemon juice or preferably a grating of lemon peel.