Name: Spinach Soup
Ingredients: 2 cups spinach, boiled and prepared; ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 2 tablespoons butter; 1⅓ cups stock soup; 1 cup cream; Vegetables for flavoring

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Spinach Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the spinach and prepare it with salt, butter, and cream.
Press the spinach through a sieve into a pot of stock soup, well seasoned and flavored with vegetables.
Add ½ cup of cream and let it boil for a moment.
Serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Spinach + creamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,130 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Spinach + buttertop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,583 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Spinach: Provides the main body and green color of the soup once pressed smooth.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the spinach.
Cream: Adds richness and a silkier texture to the finished soup.
Stock soup: Forms the liquid base that carries the spinach and seasoning.