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German Spinach

A creamy spinach dish made with butter, flour, cream, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

German Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Pick over the spinach, removing decayed leaves.

  2. Soak the leaves in cold water for 30 minutes without shaking off the wet.

  3. Fill a saucepan with the wet leaves and cover it.

  4. Bring to a boil, then cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  5. Salt the cooked spinach, drain in a colander, and mince finely.

Make the creamed spinach

  1. In a saucepan, heat the butter and mix in the flour to make a roux.

  2. When bubbling, season with salt and pepper, then stir in the spinach.

  3. Add the cream and heat until almost dry.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a deep dish or mound on a platter, and garnish with hard-boiled eggs or 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Spinach + flourtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 bulk of the dish and, once cooked and minced, gives it a soft, smooth texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the dish.
Flour
Forms a roux with the butter that thickens the spinach and helps it hold together.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the spinach a smooth, creamy body.

The step that matters

Drying the spinach after adding cream. Heating until almost dry lets excess moisture evaporate so the spinach stays thick rather than watery. Stopping too early leaves it loose, while overheating can cause the cream to split.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Spinachthe original
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, cream, 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.

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