• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

CooksInfo

  • Home
  • Encyclopaedia
  • Kitchenware
  • Recipes
  • Food Calendar
menu icon
go to homepage
search icon
Homepage link
  • Recipes
  • Encyclopaedia
  • Kitchenware
  • Food Calendar
×
Home » Food Colourings » Vert d’épinard

Vert d’épinard

Vert d'épinardVert d’épinard
© Randal Oulton
Contents hide
  • 1 Cooking Tips
  • 2 Substitutes

In classical cooking, the French phrase “vert d’épinard” refers to spinach that has had its juice squeezed out of it. It means literally “green of spinach.”

You purée the fresh spinach leaves with a bit of water, until the mixture forms almost a mousse. Then you press it through a chinois to force most of the water out. Then, you scrape out the solids in the chinois, and put them in a pan, and heat it to 70 C (158 F.) Sometimes you have to go a bit higher. The goal though is to heat it until the mixture separates into two — water underneath and coagulate spinach fibre on top — without going so high that the vibrant green colour of the spinach starts to change.

The resultant spinach fibre was classically used to colour dishes — even icings on cakes, though the concentrated spinach flavour does of course come through.

In modern usage, “vert d’épinard” may just refer to a handful of fresh spinach.

Cooking Tips

100 g (4 cups / 3 ½ oz) of washed fresh spinach leaves
½ cup water

Yield: 50 g (3 tablespoons)

You can make vert d’épinard in advance (in fact, it makes your cooking day less stressful if you do), but it needs to be used up within 1 to 2 days.

Vert d'épinard food processor

Vert d’épinard: Step 1 blend with water
© Randal Oulton

Vert d'épinard pressing

Vert d’épinard: Step 2 press
© Randal Oulton

Vert d'épinard heating

Vert d’épinard: Step 3 heating gently
© Randal Oulton

Vert d'épinard finished

Vert d’épinard: Ready to use
© Randal Oulton

 

Substitutes

Frozen spinach thawed retaining water, whiz with the retained water in a food processor or chop very finely, then press through a sieve then patted dry between paper towelling.

OR Green food colouring.

Other names

French: Vert d'épinard

This page first published: Jan 25, 2006 · Updated: Jun 19, 2018.

This web site generates income from affiliated links and ads at no cost to you to fund continued research · Information on this site is Copyright © 2023· Feel free to cite correctly, but copying whole pages for your website is content theft and will be DCMA'd.

Tagged With: Spinach

Primary Sidebar

Hi, I’m Skylar! This is a fake profile talking about how I switched to a paleo diet and it helped my eczema and I grew 4″. Trust me, I’m an online doctor.

More about me →

Popular

  • E.D. Smith Pumpkin Purée
    E.D. Smith recipe for pumpkin pie
  • Libby's Pumpkin Pie
    Libby’s recipe for pumpkin pie
  • Pie crust
    Pie Crust Recipe
  • Smokey Maple Pepper Glaze for Ham
    Smokey Maple Pepper Glaze for Ham

You can duplicate your homepage’s trending recipes section in the sidebar to reinforce the internal linking.

We no longer recommend using a search bar, newsletter form or category drop-down menu in the sidebar. See the Modern Sidebar post for details.

If the block editor is not narrower than usual, simply save the page and refresh it.

Search

    Today is

  • Hot Mulled Cider Day
    Mulled cider
  • German Butterbrot Day
    Butterbrot with cress

Footer

↑ back to top

About

  • About this site
  • Privacy Policy
  • Copyright enforced!
  • Terms & Conditions

Newsletter

  • Sign Up! for emails and updates

Site

  • Recipes
  • Encyclopaedia
  • Kitchenware
  • Food Calendar

This web site generates income from affiliated links and ads at no cost to you to fund continued research · The text on this site is © Copyright.