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Spinach, Puree Of, with Butter

Spinach puree made with butter, salt, pepper, and optional sauce, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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, Puree Of, with Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Remove the stalks from the spinach and wash it in 2–3 waters.

  2. Lift the spinach out with your fingers to let the sand settle.

  3. Place the spinach in a saucepan with boiling water and a little salt.

  4. Boil until tender, pressing it occasionally with a wooden spoon.

  5. Drain well and remove any remaining stalks or fibers.

  6. Rub the spinach through a coarse sieve into a bowl.

Finish and serve

  1. Transfer the pulp to a saucepan with butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Stir over heat until hot, then add 1–2 spoonfuls of sauce.

  3. Continue stirring for 5 minutes and serve hot, garnished with fried sippets or with lamb/mutton cutlets.

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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Spinach + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together756 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

What each ingredient does

Spinach
Forms the main body of the puree once cooked and rubbed smooth.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the puree a smooth, silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Rub the spinach through a coarse sieve. Pressing cooked spinach through a sieve breaks down the fibers and separates the pulp, which gives the puree its smooth texture. Skipping this or leaving fibers in leaves the puree stringy.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

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