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Spinach Pudding

A baked spinach custard with bread, meat, onions, eggs, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,025 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Spinach Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the spinach

  1. Wash the spinach.

  2. Boil the spinach in water for a few minutes.

  3. Strain the spinach.

  4. Pour cold water over the spinach.

  5. Wring the spinach out.

  6. Chop the spinach.

Make the batter

  1. Soak the bread in milk.

  2. Wring the bread out.

  3. Add the bread to the spinach.

  4. Add the chopped meat remnants.

  5. Add the stewed onion in butter.

  6. Add the chopped parsley.

  7. Add them to the spinach mixture.

  8. Beat the egg yolks with butter.

  9. Add the beaten yolks to the spinach mixture along with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  10. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a form.

  2. Boil the batter in a kettle of boiling water for 15 minutes.

  3. Transfer the covered kettle to a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  4. Bake for 2 hours.

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. Spinach + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Spinach + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 pudding and adds moisture and a green, earthy flavour.
Bread
Soaked in milk, it absorbs liquid and helps give the pudding a soft, tender body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and help bind it as it sets.
Egg whites
Folded in whipped-style, they add lift and a lighter, airier texture.
Milk
Softens the bread and adds moisture to the batter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites trap air when beaten, and gentle folding keeps that air in the batter so the pudding rises and stays light rather than dense.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, bread, milk, meat, butter, parsley, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, bread, milk, meat, butter, parsley, egg. 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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