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Salad

Summer Squash

A salad of tender greens dressed with a butter, egg yolk, mustard, and cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 503 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Summer Squash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the greens

  1. Pick over and wash the greens thoroughly, then soak in cold water until ready to cook.

  2. Boil plenty of salted water and cook the greens until tender.

  3. Drain and chop the greens finely until they form a soft green paste.

Make the dressing and finish

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter and mix in the egg yolks, salt, pepper, mustard, and cream.

  2. Combine the dressing with the chopped greens and return to the heat, stirring until hot but not boiling.

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.

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.

  1. Spinach + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together503 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Spinach + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Greens
Provide the bulk and the green flavour of the dish, cooked down into a soft purée.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the dressing.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the butter and cream and thicken the dressing as it heats.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, loosening the dressing and making it smoother.
Mixed mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent note that balances the richness of the butter and yolks.

The step that matters

Heating the dressing with the greens. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated but curdle if they boil. Stir over low heat only until hot, not boiling, so the dressing stays smooth.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, butter, egg, pepper, cream):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, butter, egg, pepper, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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