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To Dress Spinach

A sautéed spinach dish flavored with butter, pepper, salt, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Dress Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Pick the spinach leaves from the stems and wash them well.

  2. Boil the spinach in a large saucepan of salted water for about 10 minutes.

  3. Strain the spinach using a sieve or colander and press it in a cloth to remove excess water.

Make the creamed spinach

  1. Place the spinach in a saucepan with a little butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Heat the spinach on the stove for about 10 minutes before serving.

  3. Add nearly ½ cup of cream, mix well, and serve.

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Spinach leaves
Forms the bulk of the dish and gives it its green colour and earthy flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel as it melts into the spinach.
Cream
Adds moisture and a smooth, rich texture that coats the spinach.

The step that matters

Pressing out the excess water. Spinach holds a lot of water, and any left behind dilutes the cream and makes the dish watery. Pressing it firmly in a cloth before adding butter and cream keeps the texture thick and smooth.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Spinachthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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