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Spinach fits the mold in easy timbale

Recipe: Simple spinach timbales make a delicious side dish

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED MAY 23, 2021

Cheese-topped spinach timbale on a plate

Spinach timbale is an easy and delicious side dish.

(Photos: Debbie Arrington)

Timbales sound fancy (and some are). This simple version shows off one of our favorite spring vegetables – spinach.

We love our spinach on the Left Coast. Jeanne Voltz (a.k.a. Marian Manners), the Los Angeles Times food editor and columnist during the 1950s and '60s, noted that this leafy green was popular with both home cooks and chefs.

“Californians eat spinach with no prodding at all,” she wrote in “The California Cookbook,” a 1970 compilation of Golden State favorites. “The most deluxe restaurants serve enormous quantities of creamed spinach.”

This recipe is a modified version of a throwback. Along with several other spinach recipes, Spinach Timbales were featured as an alternative to ubiquitous creamed spinach in the 1949 “Sunset Cook Book of Favorite Recipes.” (I’ll save that book’s Taxco Spinach-Stuffed Pancakes for another day.)

Timbales got their French name from their shape; it’s derived from the French word for “kettledrum.” Custard cups or other similarly shaped molds work great.

Timbales may have crusts that act as the mold for the rich ingredients inside. The most simple (such as this) are crustless egg custards blended with other ingredients and steamed or baked in a water bath.

Before puréeing, cook your spinach with as little water as possible.

Sautéeing the spinach in a little olive

oil is one way to cook it with little water.

Spinach timbales
Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked spinach, puréed
2 eggs, beaten
½ cup cream
1 scallion, finely chopped (including some green leaves)
¼ cup Parmesan cheese, shredded
1/8 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon mace or nutmeg
Butter, margarine or non-stick spray

Instructions:

Butter or grease 4 molds or custard cups. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Bring 2 cups water to boil, then turn off heat.

In a mixing bowl, combine puréed spinach, eggs, cream, scallion, Parmesan cheese, hot sauce, pepper and mace or nutmeg until blended. Spoon mixture into prepared molds or custard cups.

Place filled molds or cups in a deep-dish pie pan (or similar pan) and place pan on oven shelf. Carefully fill pan halfway with hot water around the molds or cups (it may not take all 2 cups).

Bake at 350 degrees until the timbales are set and, when tested, a thin-bladed knife comes out clean, about 35 to 40 minutes. Let rest 5 minutes.

To unmold, run a thin-bladed knife along the inside of the mold or cup. Carefully invert over plate.

4 timbales in pan of water — Timbales after baking but before unmolding.

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RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

Keywords:

recipes spring vegetables gardening Sacramento cooking recipe backyard produce produce management side dish spinach

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Flowers in My Back Yard Series

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Garden checklist for week of Aug. 16

During this break in the heat, feed your garden. Make sure to water before and after applying fertilizer.

* In the garden, direct seed beets, carrots, leaf lettuce and turnips.

* Plant potatoes.

* Harvest tomatoes, beans, squash, pepper and eggplants to prompt plants to keep producing. Give your plants a deep watering twice a week, more if planted in containers. Also, give them a boost with phosphate-rich fertilizer to help fruiting.

* Watch out for caterpillars and hornworms in the vegetable garden. They can strip a plant bare in one day. Pick them off plants by hand in early morning or late afternoon.

* Feed citrus trees their last round of fertilizer for the year. This will give a boost to the fruit that’s still small.

* Mulch can be your garden’s best friend – it conserves moisture while blocking out weeds. But don't let mulch mound around stalks, stems or trunks. That can promote rot.

* Camellia leaves looking a little yellow? Give them some chelated iron. That goes for azaleas and gardenias, too.

* Pick up after your fruit trees. Clean up debris and dropped fruit; this cuts down on insects and prevents the spread of brown rot. Then feed fruit trees with slow-release fertilizer for better production for next year.

* To prolong bloom into fall, feed begonias, fuchsias and container plants. Always water before fertilizing.

* Fertilize fall-blooming perennials, too. Chrysanthemums can be fed until the buds start to open.

* Prepare for a fall full of flowers by paying a little extra attention to your garden. Cut off spent blooms from roses, annuals and perennials, then give them a boost of fertilizer. Make sure to water plants before feeding. Roses will rebloom about six to eight weeks after deadheading.

* Indoors, start seedlings for fall vegetable planting, including bunching onion, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, radicchio and lettuce.

* Sow seeds of perennials in pots for fall planting including yarrow, coneflower and salvia.

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