Name: Dressed Spinach with Espagnol Sauce
Ingredients: spinach; butter; sugar; coarse sea salt; ½ cup cream; 2 fresh egg yolks

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 ↓

Dressed Spinach with Espagnol Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Press the spinach in a cloth until it smashes easily.
Cut the spinach in half and remove the insides into a wire sieve.
Press the spinach through the sieve with a wooden spoon.
In a stewpan, combine the pressed spinach with a pat of butter, a little sugar, coarse sea salt, and ½ cup cream.
Gently mix together and add 2 fresh egg yolks.
Ensure the mixture is soft and white but firm enough to hold its shape.
Dish the mixture in a sugarloaf shape and crimp the edges with a knife.
Serve very hot with a tomato sauce.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Spinach + creamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,130 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).