Name: Spinach with Egg
Ingredients: 1 peck spinach; 2 teaspoons salt; 1 teaspoon pepper; 3 tablespoons butter or drippings; 2 hard-boiled eggs

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 Egg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

Wash and blanch the spinach in boiling water with 2 teaspoons of salt.
Drain the blanched spinach and chop it finely.

Cook and serve

Return the chopped spinach to the saucepan and add the remaining salt, pepper, and butter or drippings.
Cook on the stove for 10 minutes.
Serve in a mound on a hot dish and garnish with sliced hard-boiled eggs.

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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Spinach + eggtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,323 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Spinach + buttertop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,583 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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 carries the flavor of the butter and seasoning.
Butter or drippings: Adds fat and richness, coating the chopped spinach and carrying flavor.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add protein-rich texture and a mild, creamy contrast to the cooked greens.