2014 Cooking Club Week 45: Four Cheese and Spinach Dip

emaleth

Ingredients

200g frozen spinach
50g butter
4 cloves garlic, crushed
50g flour
125 ml white wine
300 ml milk at room temperature
200g cream cheese at room temperature
150g feta cheese, diced, at room temperature
250g strong cheddar, grated, at room temperature
50g parmesan, grated, at room temperature
Cayenne
Smoked Paprika
Mustard powder
Worcestershire sauce
Breadcrumbs
Extra cheddar for sprinkling

Spatula tip to Pioneer Woman – I bastardised this from her.

Step One: Plunk 200g of frozen spinach in a colander to defrost and drain. If you’re in a mad hurry, pour boiling water over it to defrost. Once it’s defrosted, squeeze until it screams for mercy and is as dry as you can get it. Chop roughly. Don’t fret too much about precision or Sahara levels of dryness on this step, and indeed, if you hate spinach and all its works, feel free to skip it. Though avowed spinach despisers have eaten this by the pound in my sight. Just sayin’.



Step Two: Melt your butter over a medium heat in a nice big wide pan, and sauté the garlic until it smells nice, maybe a minute or so, then add the flour. Stir around the pan while it thickens up and the flour cooks into a thick roux, another minute or so. Turn the heat up to medium high and pour in the wine. Pour some for yourself while you’re at it, no judgement here, I had my first glass poured before I started. Let the wine in the pan bubble for a couple of minutes, stirring all the while.

Step Three: Fetch yourself a nice big whisk, roll up your sleeves and get your whippin’ arm ready.

Step Four: Armed with the whisk, start pouring the milk into your roux. Whisk, whisk, whisk until it’s all incorporated and there are no lumps. We fear no lumps, for our room temperature milk will behave perfectly, and besides, we have a huge whisk. Let it bubble again for a minute or two. Add the cream cheese and whisk the bejesus out of it until melted and smooth. Repeat with the feta (mash this with the whisk as you go or it’ll take until Doomsday) and the grated cheddar. Word of warning here – do not buy the pre grated cheddar, it has some weird ass coating on it that affects its melty performance, and by the old gods and the new, we want melty. Sorry for not using the full package of feta, but the dip is too sharp if you do, I threw myself on the grenade and checked for you. You should eat the rest of the package as you go along though, we don’t like waste and we really love cheese, and after all we’re swanky with the wine so you might as well.



Step Five: Take the pan off the heat, add the Parmesan, whisk until melted in and start tasting. I suggest a quarter teaspoon of cayenne, a half teaspoon of mustard powder and half a teaspoon of smoked paprika to start with. I use a good shake of Old Bay as well, which you may or may not be able to get your hands on. If you’re in Dublin, Fallon and Byrne usually have it. If you don’t have Old Bay, celery salt is great. A couple of teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce can go in now. A shake of fish sauce also works well. There are no limits here, if you like something, add it. I’ve been known to add a crumbled Oxo cube at this stage. Plenty of fresh cracked black pepper, you probably won’t need salt, but this will depend on your tastes.

Step Six: Have another glass of wine, this is a process, and your poor arms must be killing you. Turn the oven on to 190c (ballpark, my fan oven is as hot as hell and I usually do these at 170 or so).



Step Seven: Add the dry-ish, chopped spinach to the cheesy gloriousness that you’ve just eaten two tablespoons of (we saw you) and mix well. Pour into a casserole dish, or if you’re a china fanatic like nobody I know (coughtwofulldinnerservicesforsixteencough) into dinky little Le Creuset pie dishes. Top with breadcrumbs and more grated cheddar, or parmesan, or for the sensible among us, both. Into the oven with your dip and bake for fifteen minutes or so, until crusted, bubbling and cheesy on top, ensuring that you have enough wine to see you through, we wouldn’t want you running dry.

Step Eight: Remove from the oven and serve, to rapturous applause and proposals of marriage. Let other people go first and burn their tongues. This is like napalm on the palate, give it a minute.

I serve this with knives on the plate to spread the dip on crackers, as it’s goopy stuff and might break any cracker you try to dip in there. TK Maxx usually have spreaders for dips, if you’re feeling fancy.



If you’re feeling extra fancy, you can serve it in a bread bowl, with the interior of the bread cut up and toasted (or not) to dip in. Bacon sourdough is a solid choice here, as it is everywhere.

This freezes perfectly double wrapped in foil in the casserole dish without the breadcrumbs and cheese crust – just defrost at room temperature, add the toppings and heat as above. Great for parties.

When you say “But that’s just a four cheese béchamel with breadcrumbs!” you are entirely correct. I think you’ll agree me, however, that because there’s spinach in it, it’s healthy and a vegetable.

MissFlitworth

This made me laugh a huge amount & it looks delicious! I'm seeing myself following your wine & cheese plan next Friday for a little spot of decadence