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Spinach Sauce, for Boiled Fowls, Etc

A creamy spinach sauce made with butter, pepper, salt, and boiling milk, served hot with boiled fowls.

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 Sauce, for Boiled Fowls, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Wash the spinach in two or three waters.

  2. Pick the leaves from the stalks and drain them.

  3. Stew the spinach with just enough water to prevent burning for about ten minutes.

  4. Squeeze out the moisture and beat the spinach with a wooden spoon until smooth.

Make the sauce

  1. Dissolve a slice of fresh butter in a saucepan, then add the spinach.

  2. Stir until the spinach is hot and dry.

  3. Add pepper, coarse sea salt, and enough boiling milk to achieve a thick cream consistency.

  4. Stir until smooth and serve very hot.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + milktop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Spinach + milktop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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 sauce and gives it its green colour and earthy flavour.
Fresh butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel and carries flavour across the spinach.
Boiling milk
Loosens the spinach into a thick, creamy consistency and adds moisture and softness.

The step that matters

Stir until the spinach is hot and dry. Spinach holds a lot of water, so cooking off excess moisture before adding milk keeps the sauce thick rather than thin and watery.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Spinachthe original

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