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Spinach with Cream

A sautéed spinach dish finished with a creamy sauce.

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 with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Blanch and mince the spinach.

Make the creamed spinach

  1. In a saucepan, heat the butter or drippings.

  2. Add the flour and stir until smooth.

  3. Mix in the minced spinach, salt, and pepper.

  4. Cook for 5 minutes.

  5. Add the hot milk.

  6. Cook for 3 minutes longer.

  7. Serve.

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. 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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 main body of the dish and, once minced, gives it a tender, creamy texture.
Butter or drippings
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, lightly bound sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it cooks with the flour.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and stirring until smooth. Flour mixed into hot fat must be stirred constantly so its starch coats each grain evenly; otherwise it clumps and the sauce turns lumpy instead of silky.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

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