Cream of Spinach Soup

On Saturday, I have found some beautiful fresh free range spinach at my greengrocer, it was no question that I had to buy a handful or two. Spring-summer spinach is great for a fresh salad, but the autumn-winter spinach must be cooked, but be careful not to blanche spinach longer than 2 minutes and do not sautee longer than 5 minutes, because then it loses all its nutritive substances.


I guess I couldn't have prepared anything better than a soup on that cold winter day. I wanted to inculde the beautiful white snow somehow on the plate so I decided to experiment a bit with the eggs. I have beaten the egg whites very stiff and then put some spoonful into a plastic bag, then I placed the yolk into the middle and covered it with some more egg white. It was "cooked" for 10-12 minutes in water that had about 65-70°C. That fluffy egg was just perfect together with the hot soup.


Ingredients:
300 g spinach
2 shallots
100 g potato (floury)
1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon butter
500 ml vegetable or chicken stock
100 ml cream
nutmeg
salt, pepper


Cut peeled potato, onion and garlic in cubes and remove the stalks of the spinach and rinse well. Heat butter and sautee onion, garlic until glassy, add potato and sautee for a few more minutes. Add stock and cream and cook over medium heat until the potato is cooked through. Add spinach in small portions and as soon as it is fallen together puree. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg and some lemon juice if desired.