I had some spinach in the fridge that had to be used, and lacking inspiration, I thought I'd look online at my go-to sites: Epicurious and Marmiton
I like going to Epicurious because there's a large collection of recipes and they're usually good (from Condé Nast magazines), and sometimes cooking instructions are easier in English for me.
But if I have an ingredient that is rare or just not popular in the States (potimarron, Jerusalem artichokes, etc), I turn to Marmiton. Marmiton is a less "professional" in that visitors to the site can post their versions of the recipes or even submit a recipe, but this often means they're more homey and less complicated.
So for my spinach I first go to Epicuriou. Here are the first 5 recipes when I search for just the word spinach:
1. Mama Voula's Spanakopita
2. Sephardic Spinach Patties
3. Mexican Poblano, Spinach, and Black Bean "Lasagne" with Goat Cheese
4. Spinach and Omelet Roll
5. Golden Egg White Omelets with Spinach and Cheese
In comparison, here are the first 5 recipes on Marmiton;
1. Cake aux épinards
2. Rouleaux aux épinards
3. Tarte aux épinards
4. Pain aux épinards
5. Cake épinards-mandarines
The Epicurious list continues with a bunch of variations on creamed spinach, whereas Marmiton has lots of 'cake' or 'tarte' recipes.
It seems like spinach is considered a fancy ingredient in America, that you use in exotic dishes. In France it's a good vegetable you can stick in a quiche, cake, or something else.
And speaking of which, an easy salmon and spinach quiche seems like the easiest idea!
7 comments:
I don't think that spinach is fancy in the U.S. I think that's just the nature of many of the recipes on Epicurious. I love it, but it's definitely not the site I go to if I want something quick & simple. I'm kind of obsessed with Ina Garten (AKA The Barefoot Contessa), because she has really simple recipes that take advantage of the flavors of the food. So usually I google her name + the ingredient and see what she has to say before proceeding elsewhere.
I just posted on Monday about spinach :-)
http://confituredulait.blogspot.fr/2012/04/i-eats-me-spinach.html
Yum!!!
The recipe site I've ever found is BBC Good Food. Stick in the ingredient you want to use and all the recipes with it in come up. They are easy to use and work.
I go back to it every week.
I'd never heard of Marmiton, but it looks like a great site! Unfortunately, I shy away from sites that use the metric system, but I need to be better about that, because French recipe websites are so much more familiar with the local produce.
Mmm.. just had spinach for lunch! I'd say that in both searches it just seems like you have to put spinach IN something and that you can't eat it alone!
In general, I'm pretty skeptical of Marmiton, because the database consists entirely of user contributions, which can result in strange measurements, etc. To me, Marmiton can be most acurately compared to AllRecipes.
I love Epicurious but I pretty much use it as a starting off point, as the recipes can be complicated or I'll have a different idea/direction to take things in. They have a nice app too which has become handy in the kitchen.
Most of my recipes come from blogs I follow but Epicurious is my fall back database. If you are looking for some good, solid vegetable recipe ideas my recommendation is always Mark Bittman. His book "How to Cook Everything" is our kitchen bible and his posts for the times are great too.
Oh one last idea. This great site: food52.com
And i think you would love Cooks' Illustrated. The online subscription is really worth it! I get the paper magazine because I love looking for to it in the mail, but the web subscription gives access to all their archives and they really do an excellent job researching and developing amazing recipes. OK! I'm really done now :P
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