Baked Spinach (Tian d’épinards) (Also, below, my recipe for Argentinean Spinach Pie)

Ingredients

2 lbs spinach
1 garlic clove
2 oz strong grated cheese (Parmesan or mature cheddar)
8 eggs
salt and pepper
2 Tbsp olive oil

Method

Remove the stalks from the spinach. Steam in a covered saucepan a few minutes until wilted. Squeeze out as much moisture as possible. Crush the garlic with a little salt and chop it into the spinach while chopping the spinach. Beat the eggs with the cheese, eggs, salt and pepper, and add the spinach mixture.
Oil a tian and fill it with the mixture. Bake 1 hour at 300 °F (150 °C).

Source

Adapted from a recipe card promoting The Old World Kitchen: The Rich Tradition of European Peasant Cooking by Elisabeth Luard.

Method

Another cookbook well-loved by its owners. According to the reviewers, it takes the reader on an extensive trip through more than 25 European countries. The food information is excellent, and more accurate than the history in a few cases.
The original recipe includes detailed serving suggestions, which you can follow if you have access to certain authentic regional French sausages. I don’t.
If you don’t have an actual tian dish, you can, as far as I can tell, make this in any suitably-sized shallow, flat-bottomed oval casserole dish and no one will be the wiser. I’m not sure whether I’ll be making this. Mashing the salt and garlic into the spinach is intriguing, but I like Argentinean spinach pie so much that whenever I think of eating a baked dish of eggs and spinach I’m more likely to go back to that old favourite. Also, it uses much less egg than the tian.

And so, my almost-authentic version of Argentinean spinach pie.
Make a pastry crust and line a pie pan or quiche pan with it. Preheat oven to 400 °F (205 °C).
Wash, chop coarsely, and cook enough spinach (no need to remove the stems) so that it will fill the pie after it has wilted and shrunk from cooking. Drain the spinach, but no need to squeeze it dry as in the tian. Sprinkle a few tablespoons of your favourite cheese, grated, in the bottom of the unbaked pie crust. Don’t put the spinach in yet, or its moisture will sog the pie crust while you prepare the eggs.
Lightly beat about 3 eggs along with some finely chopped onion. Season with salt, pepper and a teaspoon of dried oregano (and optionally a bit of nutmeg). Add a bit of milk, enough so that when you pour it over the spinach, which you have now spread into the pastry and cheese-lined pie dish, it will come up near to the top of the dish (up to within, say, 1/2 inch or 1.5 cm of the maximum spinach altitude), but not so high as to be in danger of overflowing. If your pan is very big, add another egg rather than adding more than 1/2 cup of milk.
Bake 15 minutes at 400 °F (205 °C), then turn down oven to 350 °F (175°C) and continue baking until the egg mixture is set in the middle (about 30-45 minutes more).

Red Wine-Cooked Onions (Daube d’Oignons)

Ingredients

1/4 c butter
2 1/2-3 lb Spanish onions, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
1 Tbsp sugar
1 1/2 cups full-bodied red wine such as Petite Sirah or Côtes-du-Rhône
salt and freshly-ground pepper
1 tsp or more red wine vinegar

Method

Heat butter in a 4-quart saucepan (not aluminum) over low heat. Add onions. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, 45 minutes.
Uncover, increase heat to medium-high, and cook, stirring frequently, until onions are glazed and golden-brown (20 minutes). Sprinkle with sugar and boil down, stirring, 2 to 3 minutes to glaze.
Reduce heat to low, add wine, and cook, stirring frequently, until onions are very soft and deep mahogany in colour, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
Season with salt and pepper, and add vinegar to counteract any sweetness. Serve hot, lukewarm or cold.
If Spanish onions not available, increase sugar, but add a little vinegar at the last minute to counteract excessive sweetness.

Source

Adapted from a recipe card promoting The Cooking of South-West France by Paula Wolfert.

Comments

The subtitle of the cookbook is Recipes from France’s Magnificent Rustic Cuisine. The Amazon reviewers who have the book praise it highly and make it sound very appealing. The blurb sounds delicious, too;

the recipes do not disappoint. Some standouts include Morue Pil-Pil, a spicy, slow-cooked salt cod dish recipe from the Basque region, and Cèpes of the Poor, chunks of eggplant sautéed to replicate the texture of costly mushrooms.

I don’t think I’ll be making this one, though. Deeply browned onions are delicious, but worth 3 hours of to-and-fro-ing to stir the dish? You can make it for me if you want; I’m sure I’ll like it.
There’s a logical glitch at the end; if you don’t have Spanish onions, add more sugar (how much?) and then vinegar at the end to counterbalance the sweetness. But you’re supposed to add vinegar anyway; this instruction is no different than the one given in the basic recipe. I don’t think you can get this right unless you already know how it’s supposed to taste.