The 2nd-Best Side Dish I’ve Got

If I ask you to close your eyes and  imagine a serving of creamed spinach,   what color is it? Is it off-white with  streaks of green in it? Something that   could reasonably be confused with spinach  artichoke dip? Today I wish to put you onto   a take on creamed spinach that isn’t forty  percent cheese. A version that came   to me via a now-defunct YouTube channel  called “Let’s get Fat”, which was run by   Playboy. And instead of dwelling too long on  the fact that my favorite highbrow side dish   for ten years comes from a nudie mag derivative,  I’d rather show you how it’s supposed to be made.

Step one is to come to terms with the fact  that you’re about to dirty what feels like   too many dishes for a vegetable-based side dish.   A pot, a pan, a bowl, a food processor… Go into   this knowing that you’ll be doing dishes  for 3 minutes more than you’re used to.   Step two is to make a green spinach cream. You  do this by getting a big pot of water to a boil,   chucking in two packed cups of spinach and pulling  it out as soon as it turns bright green, about 40   seconds. You plunge the spinach into ice water  so it doesn’t overcook. After it’s cooled down,   squeeze all the excess water out from the leaves.   All those leaves shrank down to a quarter cup. Put   that hunk o’ spinach in a food processor, with a  pinch of salt and just enough cream to make the   blades go to work. You need everything broken down  into tiny flecks. This light green spinach cream   will serve as the base of the dish. The process  so far already sounds laborious and cheffy,   I know. I come bearing great news. You can buy  frozen spinach that’s been blanched and chopped

ahead of time. Make sure you buy a block or a bag  of frozen spinach that’s deliberately packaged as   ready to eat. Some brands don’t blanch it first,  and those are meant to be cooked before eating,   lest ye risk a foodborne illness. Others  are marketed for use, right out of the bag,   like for a smoothie. And when you’ve got  blanched chopped spinach on-hand in the freezer,   all you’ve gotta do is blend a quarter cup chunk  of it with cream and salt. Now you’ve got the same   fancy spinach cream in a quarter of the time with  no dirty pot nor bowl. On to the next component.

In a pan heated to medium-low, melt a tablespoon  of unsalted butter and add to it two cloves of   minced garlic. Not jarlic, but freshly  minced honest to goodness garlic. There   aren’t enough components in this dish to hide  sub-par ingredients. Keep things moving so the   garlic can’t burn, and once you notice it turning  blonde and smelling toasty, in go four packed cups   of fresh baby spinach. Season the leaves with  salt immediately. The salt pulls water out of   the spinach, and having that water in a hot pan  makes it so the garlic can’t burn. When you see   water starting to collect in the pan, add another  tablespoon of butter and stir aggressively so that   the butter and water emulsify. That should  only take half a minute. Now you can lower   the heat as low as it gets without turning off,  and coat your cooked leaves in the green spinach   cream. I’m using like a half cup’s worth here.   You’ll probably have some of that cream leftover,   but depending on the size of your food processor  it can be hard to make a smaller batch than what   I made. Keep everything moving so it combines  and emulsifies properly, then cut the heat and   add a wee little bit of nutmeg. You’re gonna wanna  taste this dish a couple times before serving it.    Cream and butter are high in fat, and fat needs  a lot of salt, so the first bite will probably   taste underseasoned. That’s good. You wanna have  some headroom to shave in some pecorino cheese,   which is so salty it behaves… basically… like  salt. The nutmeg should be… perceptible, yet   unidentifiable. When salt and the ‘meg are both  on point, plate it up. alongside a centerpiece   dish like grilled ribeye. This is a side dish  that punches above its weight class for a couple

reasons: It’s familiar, yet more chic than the  standard version. It’s like six ingredients,   but cooked into something more elegant than  the sum of its parts with a requisite level   of technique that says “I’m good at cooking”.   And, it refrigerates nicely for leftovers. You can   zhuzh it up on day two by sprinkling toasted panko  breadcrumbs on top. In the end, I know there’s no   dish that could ever dethrone nondescript “roast  veggies” as everyone’s default side dish, but for   the days on which peeling, dicing, and turning the  oven to 450 for roasted yams sounds like too much,   PlayBoy creamed spinach is always ready to crank  out. I hope that’s a convincing call to action,   because using the words “yams, creamed, and  cranked” that closely in succession means   I have to file a monetization appeal now. I’m  willing to make one last concession and it’s this:   If you’re feeling a sense of dismay this close to  the end of the video because you came in hoping   to learn how to eat more leafy greens but know in  your heart of hearts you’ll never be bothered to   make the green spinach cream, let good triumph  over perfect. Melt butter over medium low heat,

crush a clove of garlic into the fat,  stir it around until it’s lightly toasted,   and add nothing more than two handfuls of spinach  and a pinch of salt. The leaves will wilt down   into a garlicky spinach side that you can shovel  down by the spoonful (garlic butter makes anything   taste good). It may not satisfy this video’s  original conceit, but it does leave you with a   surprisingly tasty vegetable component in a matter  of minutes. The purpose of this lesson was to show   you how great creamed spinach can be, but if the  secondary function reveals how to prevent that   plastic clamshell spinach bag from liquefying in  your fridge tomorrow, I’ll take it. Perhaps it’s a   bit like how you started this video with the full  intent to like subscribe comment and share but   will settle for sitting through a sixty second dog  food ad as means for support. Stay right there…

Sundays for Dogs has paid to be mentioned at the  end of this video. They make dog food that’s over   80% meat, compared to the approximate  30% of a typical brand. It’s real food,   containing nothing but the kind  of ingredients that you might eat,   yourself. These little chunks were  gently air-dried to preserve nutrition,   not roasted at high temps to maximize shelf  life. Give one of these nuggets a squeeze and   you’ll feel the textural difference. It’s as  easy to feed as kibble. You just open the bag,   scoop it and serve it. Here’s Grandpa and  Darla eating their bowlful of Sundays for   Dogs beef flavor. Look at them munching every  last piece off those hand-made slow-feed bowls,   what boujie canines. Look at them negotiating  with their lawyer regarding my use of their   likeness in a paid advertisement. The diet of  real meats and superfoods is clearly making them   too powerful. You’re planning on making a fancy  fresh spinach dish tonight, right? Well your sweet   doggy deserves a diet as fresh and nutritious  as yours. Make the switch to Sundays today and   get 50% off your first order using my link or  my code SHAQUILLE50 at checkout below. I put a   link on the screen, and a clickable one down in  the description, if you don’t wanna type it all out.