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Dessert

Cream of Spinach

A custard made with spinach, almonds, macaroons, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cream of Spinach

Why it works: Spinach and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 352 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Cream of Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Pound the spinach and almonds into a fine paste in a mortar.

  2. Add the macaroons and sweeten with sugar to taste.

  3. Pound the mixture well.

  4. Mix in the cream and egg yolks thoroughly.

  5. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Cook

  1. Pour the strained mixture into a small mold.

  2. Cook the mold like a custard.

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. Spinach + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together352 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Spinach + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Set the custard and give it a rich, smooth body as they cook.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the custard a soft, tender texture.
Macaroons
Add almond flavour and sweetness to the mixture.
Sweet almonds
Pounded into a paste, they add nutty flavour and body to the mixture.

The step that matters

Cook the mold like a custard. Egg yolks set through gentle heat; if the heat is too high or too long, the proteins tighten and the custard turns grainy, watery or curdled.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Arrowrootfits about as well
  2. Sweet potatofits about as well
  3. Spinachthe original
  4. Beetrootfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar, cream, 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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