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Spinach, American Style

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 603 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Spinach, American Style

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare and cook the spinach as directed in the previous recipe.

  2. Chop the cooked spinach finely.

  3. In a saucepan, combine the chopped spinach with a piece of butter.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg.

  5. Stir well with a wooden spoon until thoroughly warmed.

  6. Add a few spoonfuls of veal gravy and mix well.

  7. Serve garnished with hard-boiled eggs cut into quarters or small pieces of buttered toast cut into fancy shapes.

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 + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Spinachthe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

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

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