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Spinach Tarts

Spinach tarts are baked pastries filled with stewed spinach, butter, cream, salt, sugar, citron, and orange‑flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Spinach Tarts

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the spinach

  1. Scald the spinach in boiling water.

  2. Drain the spinach thoroughly. Chop the spinach.

  3. Stew the chopped spinach in butter and cream.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add salt, sugar, citron, and orange-flower water to the mixture.

  2. Place the mixture into a sheet of puff pastry.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Spinach + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together276 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 filling and gives it its green color and earthy flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and helping the spinach stew to a smooth texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the spinach filling stay soft and creamy.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, crisp, golden shell that holds the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the salt and the savory spinach.

The step that matters

Drain the spinach thoroughly. Spinach holds a lot of water. Leftover moisture dilutes the filling and can make the puff pastry soggy as it bakes.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, butter, cream, sugar. 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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