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Imitation Spinach

A dish of boiled pumpkin shoots seasoned with butter, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Imitation Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the young green shoots of the pumpkin plant well.

  2. Place them in a large saucepan with ½ cup water, ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt, and a pinch of baking soda.

  3. Press the shoots down into the water and boil until soft.

  4. Drain in a colander and squeeze out excess moisture.

Finish and serve

  1. In a saucepan, combine the shoots with 2 tablespoons butter, pepper, and a few drops of lemon juice.

  2. Stir until heated through, then serve.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Pumpkin + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together600 recipes

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

  4. Pumpkin + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,933 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Young green shoots of pumpkin plant
Form the main body of the dish and soften into a tender, edible vegetable.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the shoots a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Baking soda
Raises the water's pH, helping the greens soften and keep a bright green colour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Squeezing out the excess moisture after draining. Leftover water dilutes the butter and lemon, leaving the dish watery and flat. Squeezing the cooked shoots well keeps the finished dish concentrated and well textured.

Swap the pumpkin

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, lemon. 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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