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Spinach Soup

A warm soup made from spinach, lettuce, sorrel, butter, flour, water or stock, milk or cream, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Spinach Soup

Why it works: Lettuce and sorrel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 317 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Spinach Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the greens

  1. Wash and finely shred the spinach, lettuce, and sorrel.

  2. Boil the greens in water for 5-6 minutes.

  3. Drain the greens.

  4. Cool the greens in cold water.

  5. Squeeze out excess moisture from the greens.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, dissolve the butter.

  2. Mix in the flour until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the vegetables.

  4. Slowly pour in the boiling water or stock.

  5. Boil gently for 15 minutes.

  6. Off the heat, stir in the boiling milk or cream.

  7. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

  8. 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lettuce + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Spinach + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together204 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Spinach + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Sorrel + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together231 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Spinach
Forms the body of the soup and gives it its green color and earthy flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor through the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks, giving it body.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture when stirred in at the end.
Sorrel
Contributes a bright, sharp acidity that balances the greens.

The step that matters

Squeeze out excess moisture from the greens. Greens hold a lot of water. Leaving it in dilutes the flavor and loosens the thickened base, so the soup turns thin and watery.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

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