Skip to main content
Main

Spinach Pudding

A baked custard made with butter, flour, milk, sugar, eggs, spinach, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Henrietta Latham Dwight · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Spinach Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Make a sauce of 1.5 ounces butter, 1 ounce flour, a scant half cup rich milk, half a teaspoon sugar, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

  2. When the sauce comes to a boil, add a cup of cooked, finely chopped spinach that has been well drained.

  3. Remove from the stove and stir in two beaten eggs.

Bake the pudding

  1. Grease a mold, sprinkle it with dried sifted bread crumbs, and pour the pudding mixture into the mold.

  2. Set the mold in a pan of hot water, place it in the oven, cover to prevent browning, and bake for about three-quarters of an hour.

Serve

  1. Turn the pudding onto a platter, prepare a cream sauce to pour around it, garnish with hard-boiled eggs, cut into quarters lengthwise, and sprinkle with parsley.

  2. If any remains, cut into slices, warm in the cream sauce, and serve for luncheon.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

749Calories
28 gProtein
15 gFat
123 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Henrietta Latham Dwight. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Thickens the butter and milk sauce so it holds the spinach and eggs together.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable structure.
Butter (in the method)
Adds richness and fat that gives the sauce a smooth, tender texture.
Spinach (in the method)
Provides the main flavor and bulk, distributed through the set custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that thickens and carries the other ingredients.

The step that matters

Covering the mold in hot water. The egg-thickened mixture can curdle or turn rubbery if baked too hot. The water bath moderates heat, and the cover stops the surface from browning before the center sets.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, sugar, egg, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes