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Spinach with Sauted Crouotons

Spinach sautéed with butter and served with sautéed croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Spinach with Sauted Crouotons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Wash the spinach in several waters, discarding wilted leaves.

  2. Cook the spinach in a large pot of boiling water with sugar, salt, and baking soda for a few minutes.

  3. Drain and chop the spinach.

Finish and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, add the spinach, and cook for 2 minutes, stirring until mixed and heated.

  2. Remove to a hot platter and garnish with sautéed croutons.

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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Spinach + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,583 recipes

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

  3. Spinach + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Spinach
Forms the bulk of the dish and wilts down to a tender, soft texture when cooked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the spinach as it heats.
Baking soda
Raises the pot's alkalinity, helping the spinach keep a bright green colour during boiling.

The step that matters

Cooking the spinach in boiling water. Spinach needs only a brief boil, since overcooking turns it dull and mushy. Baking soda helps retain green colour, but too much can leave a soapy taste and soften the leaves excessively.

Swap the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. 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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