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Spinach Soup

A light soup made from cooked spinach, chicken stock, egg yolk, and heavy cream, seasoned with salt and pepper.

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

  1. Cook the spinach with the chicken stock for eight minutes.

  2. Rub the mixture through a puree strainer.

  3. Reheat the strained soup, then add the slightly beaten egg yolk, heavy cream, and seasoning.

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. Spinach + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,146 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Spinach + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Thickens the soup as it gently heats, giving it a smooth, richer body.
Heavy cream
Adds fat for a silky mouthfeel and a rounder, softer flavour.
Chicken stock
Provides the liquid base that carries the spinach flavour and gives the soup body.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens by setting when heated. If the soup is too hot when the yolk goes in, it can curdle or turn grainy. Reheat the soup gently and add the yolk off the boil, stirring constantly.

Swap the spinach

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, 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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