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Minced Spinach

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Minced Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare two pails, one with very hot water and one with cold water.

  2. Pick up the spinach in small bunches and dip them in the hot water, then transfer to the cold water.

  3. Remove the spinach from the cold water, cutting off the roots and any poor leaves.

  4. Place the spinach in a saucepan with salted boiling water.

  5. Boil the egg separately to dress it.

  6. Add a pea-sized amount of soda to the boiling spinach when nearly cooked.

  7. Boil until tender, then drain in a colander.

  8. Rub together butter and flour in a bowl.

  9. Chop and measure the spinach.

  10. In a frying pan, cook the butter and flour mixture until smooth.

  11. Add the chopped spinach to the pan.

  12. Measure and add milk to the mixture.

  13. Shell and slice the boiled egg on a plate.

  14. Arrange the spinach in a mound on a hot dish and garnish with sliced egg.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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