MENU DORSET issue 08 65 pages | Page 8

P Dorset L E N T Y The Vital Ingredient: Sp nach A superfood and fast food, spinach is at its best in the spring, so make sure you don’t miss out. F 8 or many people, their first memory of spinach will be Popeye the Sailor Man guzzling cans of the stuff before the word superfood was even invented. That said, given that he was eating tinned spinach, it probably wasn’t that super to eat – unlike the beautiful fresh leaves that are at their best between March and June. Of course, eating spinach won’t give you huge muscles like the famous cartoon character, so what is it that makes this green veg so good for you? Well, it is such a good source of iron that vegetarians are encouraged to eat it to boost their levels. Handy, then, that so many famous and delicious veggie dishes feature spinach. Eggs Florentine is a special way to start the day, the wilted spinach leaves piled on a buttered muffin and topped with a soft poached egg and hollandaise. Fiorentina pizza is another dish which makes the most of the heavenly runny egg yolk and spinach combination, the creamy orange goo bursting all over the greens. Then there’s saag paneer, the Indian side-dish o