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Spinach Soup

A creamy spinach soup made with milk, butter, flour, egg yolk, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Spinach Soup

Why it works: Spinach and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,400 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Spinach Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Wash the spinach.

  2. Cook the spinach without adding water, adding the salt and sliced onion.

  3. When the spinach is tender, mash the mixture through a strainer or puree sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour until blended.

  3. Stir the butter and flour mixture into the hot milk and cook for 10 minutes.

  4. Add 1 cup of the spinach pulp and the egg yolk diluted with the cream.

  5. Cook for an additional 10 minutes.

  6. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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.

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Spinach + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Spinach + flourtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Spinach
Forms the body and green flavor of the soup as it cooks down into a pulp.
Butter
Enriches the soup and, with flour, forms the base that thickens the milk.
Flour
Thickens the milk by binding with butter into a roux that gives body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the soup, thickened by the roux.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps thicken and smooth the soup when cooked gently.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the soup a smoother, fuller texture.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream. Egg yolk can curdle or scramble if it meets very hot liquid. Diluting it with cream first and keeping the soup at a gentle heat helps it thicken smoothly without turning grainy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, milk, butter, flour, egg, cream, pepper. 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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