Don’t Toss Those Spinach Stems! Channel Your Inner Jewish Nonna and Make Testine di Spinaci

Like a lot of people, this pandemic has got me doubling down on reducing food waste. Not that it was ever something I didn’t care about, but every last scrap has never seemed more precious than it does right now.

For me, that means cooking with some veggie scraps I formerly would’ve tossed without a second thought. Last week I experimented with leek greens, and this week I’ve moved on to… wait for it… spinach stems!

I’ll admit I don’t even usually buy spinach with stems, at least not the kind worth remarking on—under normal circumstances, Trader Joe’s bagged organic baby spinach is my go-to—but these are desperate times, and I’ll take what I can get.

And this week, that was some decidedly mature spinach with serious stems, received in my first Farm to People box. (If you’re in NYC and looking to get some sustainable, (mostly) local produce delivered to your door right now, check them out—and if you end up placing an order, let them know Emily Sacharin referred you, if you feel like it.)

Waste Not, Want Not… Right?

After unpacking my box and attempting to disinfect my produce, as one does these days, the time came to prep my greens. I’m sorry to say I had already tossed the first few spinach stems when it occurred to me that I’d come across an Italian Jewish recipe for spinach stems somewhere once.

With a little help from Google, I realized the recipe in question was testine di spinaci, an old Venetian dish from Joyce Goldstein’s magisterial The New Mediterranean Jewish Table (highly recommended!) and contained just a few basic ingredients (olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper), all of which I had on hand. So I decided to give it a go.

A Brief History of Spinach

According to Gil Marks in The Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, as vegetables go spinach is a relative latecomer, first developed in Sasanian Persia between 226 and 640 CE. First introduced to Europe by the Moors, who brought the leafy green to Spain in the late eleventh century, spinach quickly became a favorite among Sephardic Jews.

On arriving in Italy in the thirteenth century, this likable veggie quickly became a hit in the Northern Mediterranean as well. An Arab preparation involving pine nuts and raisins caught on among Sicilian Jews, who brought the dish further north where spinaci pinoli e passerine became a specialty in the Roman and Venetian ghettos.

Now, I’m sure this dish—far more famous than testine di spinaci—is delicious, and if I’d had pine nuts and raisins on hand I would’ve happily prepared it to feature here on the blog. But since I have neither, that’ll have to wait for another time.

What I was able to cook up, though, was a recipe resourceful Venetian chefs used so as to not waste their spinach stems after preparing the pine nut raisin dish, which calls for leaves only. According to Joyce  Goldstein, testine means “little heads”; an older recipe for the same dish was named gambetti de spinasse, or “little spinach legs.”

The Big Reveal

I’ll be honest, I had no idea how this dish was going to turn out. At the start, my bowl full of raw spinach stems looked… not very appetizing. But with enough olive oil and vinegar, just about anything can be turned into a tasty treat, right?

Based on this dish, the answer is a resounding yes! I happen to adore the taste of vinegar, and if you do too, you will probably love this recipe. The spinach stems turn out silky and soft, with not even the merest hint of their woody beginnings, and the vinegar tang makes the flavor pop.

On the flip side, if you’re not a vinegar enthusiast, maybe skip this one—or at least make sure your dash, as Joyce Goldstein calls for, is of the very small variety.

Goldstein’s recipe calls for one pound of spinach stems (from four pounds of spinach); I didn’t have nearly that much, and while my yield was pretty paltry in the end (turns out even spinach stems cook down to nothing!) you can definitely scale this recipe down if you’d like to try it with a smaller quantity.

Testine di Spinaci (Braised Spinach Stems)

1 pound spinach stems and hearts

1/4 cup olive oil

Dash of red wine vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

Trim away any roots and rinse the stems in several changes of water. In a saucepan, combine the stems, oil, and enough water to barely cover. Bring to a boil over high heat and cook uncovered until the water evaporates and the stems are tender, about 10 to 12 minutes.

Add the vinegar and continue to cook until the vinegar evaporates, just a few minutes. Season with salt and pepper, remove from heat, and let cool. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

Sources: Sources: Encyclopedia of Jewish Food (Gil Marks, 2010); The New Mediterranean Jewish Table: Old World Recipes for the Modern Home (Joyce Goldstein, 2016)