Name: Spinach Balls
Ingredients: ½ tablespoon butter; 1 tablespoon cream; ½ teaspoon sugar; ¾ cup cooked and finely chopped spinach; 2 eggs; Salt and pepper to taste; ¼ teaspoon powdered mace; Boiling water, slightly salted

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 Balls

Ingredients

Directions

In a saucepan, combine butter, cream, and sugar. Mix well and bring to a boil.
Add flour until it stays on the spoon, then boil again.
Stir in the chopped spinach and remove from heat.
Once cooled, beat in the eggs one at a time, then season with salt, pepper, and mace.
In a pot of boiling salted water, dip a spoon in cold water, scoop the spinach mixture to form an oblong cake, and let it float off into the water.
Cook the balls for 4-5 minutes, ensuring they don't boil too fast to avoid breaking.
Drain in a colander, then add to a cream sauce and bring to a boil before serving on a platter garnished with parsley.

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.

Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,400 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,257 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Cream + spinachtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,130 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Swap the mace

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

Nutmegfits better
Cinnamonfits better
Tarragonfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, sugar, spinach, egg, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.