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Spinach Soup

A creamy soup made from boiled spinach, butter, flour, milk, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Spinach Soup

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Spinach Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liquid

  1. Boil one peck of spinach in 4 cups of water, then reserve the water.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour to the melted butter and mix well.

  3. Gradually add the reserved hot liquid while stirring continuously.

  4. Bring to a boil, then 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.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Spinach + milktop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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
Provides the main vegetable body and the green flavour of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and carries flavour, and forms the base for thickening.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a mild sweetness that softens the spinach flavour.

The step that matters

Gradually add the reserved hot liquid while stirring continuously. Adding the hot liquid slowly while stirring lets the flour's starch disperse evenly before it thickens. Pouring it in all at once tends to form lumps that are hard to smooth out.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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