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Chopped Spinach Thickened with Flour

A sauce made from cooked spinach thickened with flour, butter, and milk, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Chopped Spinach Thickened with Flour

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook the spinach according to package instructions.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  3. Add the flour to the melted butter and mix thoroughly.

  4. Stir in the cooked spinach and cook for about 5 minutes.

  5. Add the milk and season with salt and pepper, reheating while stirring constantly to prevent burning.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provides the main body, color and vegetable flavor of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and carries flavor through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Milk or cream
Supplies the liquid that turns the mixture into a creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring while reheating after adding the milk. Milk proteins and starches can scorch on the bottom of the pan if left unstirred over heat. Constant stirring keeps the heat even and the sauce smooth, preventing burning and lumps as it thickens.

Swap the spinach

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

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

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