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Spinach, Plainly Dressed

A simple boiled spinach dish seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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, Plainly Dressed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the leaves from the stalks and wash the spinach in several waters to remove sand and grit.

  2. Place the spinach in a large saucepan with just enough water to prevent burning and add the salt.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook the spinach over medium heat, turning it frequently until tender, about 10 minutes.

  2. Drain the spinach in a colander, squeeze it dry, and chop it small.

  3. Return the chopped spinach to the colander with the butter and place it over a saucepan of boiling water.

  4. Stir the spinach to allow the steam to dry it out.

  5. Once hot and dry, serve immediately. Optionally, garnish with fried bread slices or diced fried bread.

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. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  3. Spinach + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,583 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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 dish; cooking collapses its leaves into a tender, soft texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the cooked spinach.

The step that matters

Squeezing and drying the spinach. Spinach holds a lot of water. Squeezing it dry and then steaming off the remaining moisture keeps the dish from becoming soggy and watery.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter. 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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