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Buttered Spinach

A simple sauté of cooked spinach with butter, salt, and pepper, garnished with sliced hard‑boiled eggs and toast points.

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 ↓

Buttered Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Wash and cook the spinach as directed.

  2. Chop the cooked spinach very fine.

Cook and serve

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and mix in the salt and pepper.

  2. Add the chopped spinach and stir over moderate heat until very hot.

  3. Dish the spinach and garnish with sliced hard-boiled eggs and toast points.

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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Spinach + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. 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 body of the dish, and its moisture softens as it heats in the butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the spinach and carrying its flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring the spinach over moderate heat until very hot. Spinach is mostly water and cooks down quickly. Heating it gently and stirring keeps it evenly hot and glossy without scorching the butter or turning it stringy and dry.

Swap the spinach

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, 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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