Crêpes aux Épinards

Crêpes aux Épinards (spinach pancakes) teach a strict little truth: spinach must be dry before it meets the batter. Parboiling softens it, but dessécher, drying it over heat in butter, gives the crêpes their tender body instead of a wet, custardy middle. You aren't chasing a paper-thin crêpe here. These are small savory green cakes, bronze at the edges and soft within, built to catch the juices of beef, veal, or ham.

The source gives no yield because a garnish cook made as many as the joint required, using a small omelet pan or deep tartlet moulds in repetition. Here it becomes eight cakes for four people, cooked in one skillet and held briefly in a low oven. The moulds are brigade scaffolding and can go; the parboil, the butter-drying, and the exact equal-weight fold with the prepared paste from Yorkshire Pudding (For Beef Roasts) (No. 1943) are the dish and stay. One cook, one stove, one evening.

Weigh the spinach only after it has been squeezed and desséché. Raw leaves tell you nothing useful because water lies. If liquid appears on the plate while the spinach cools, return it to the pan and dry it once more. Ça se rattrape. This is the step that matters most.