Skip to main content
Main

Spinach Mould

A baked spinach dish with onions, butter, stock, pepper, salt, and hard boiled egg garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Mould

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

  1. Mix the cooked spinach with the chopped onions in a bowl.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the spinach mixture with butter, stock, pepper, and salt, then heat the mixture until hot and mix again.

Mould and bake

  1. Press the mixture tightly into a buttered basin or mold.

  2. Heat in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Carefully turn out the mold and garnish with rounds of hard boiled 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. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked spinach
Forms the bulk of the mould and gives it its green colour and body.
Spanish onions
Add sweetness and moisture that keep the spinach mixture soft and cohesive.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth texture that helps the mould hold together.
Stock
Adds savoury liquid that moistens the mixture and carries flavour through it.

The step that matters

Pressing the mixture into the mould. Packing the spinach tightly removes air pockets, so the mould holds its shape when turned out and sets with a firm, even texture.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

You might also like

Spinach SoupSpinach Soup50 recipesCream of SpinachCream of Spinach29 recipesCreamed Spinach SoupCreamed Spinach Soup19 recipesSpinach and EggsSpinach and Eggs8 recipes