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Spinach with Egg Sauce

Hard‑boiled eggs filled with warm spinach and topped with a lemony butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Spinach with Egg Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cook the eggs

  1. Place the eggs in a saucepan, cover with cold water, and bring to a boil.

  2. Simmer for 15 minutes.

  3. Drain the eggs and cover with cold water until cool.

Prepare and cook the spinach

  1. Remove leaves and tender stems from the spinach and wash the spinach carefully, then drain the spinach.

  2. Place the spinach in a saucepan with ½ teaspoon of salt and 1 cup of boiling water, and boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Drain the spinach and press the spinach through a colander.

  4. Add 1 tablespoon of butter, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar, and pepper to the spinach, then keep the spinach warm.

Make the sauce

  1. Rub together 2 tablespoons of butter and 1 tablespoon of flour.

  2. Pour in 1 cup of boiling water and stir over heat until it boils.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, ¼ teaspoon of salt, and a dash of pepper to the sauce.

  4. Remove the sauce from heat and stir in the beaten yolk of 1 egg.

Assemble and serve

  1. Remove the shells from the hard‑boiled eggs, cut a thin slice from each end of the eggs, and cut the eggs in half crosswise.

  2. Remove the yolks from the eggs.

  3. Fill the cavities of the egg whites with the hot spinach, heaping it nicely, and place the filled eggs on a platter.

  4. Pour the sauce over the eggs.

  5. Season the yolks with salt and pepper, then press the yolks through a vegetable press to decorate the dish.

  6. Place the eggs in a 350°F (175°C) oven for a few minutes.

  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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Eggs
Whole eggs are hard-boiled for stuffing, and a beaten yolk thickens the sauce.
Spinach (in the method)
Forms the main body of the dish, carrying the sauce and filling the egg whites.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the spinach and forms the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter into a roux.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the spinach.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten yolk of 1 egg off the heat. Egg yolk thickens when heated, and adding it to a boiling sauce can scramble it. Removing the sauce from heat first lets it thicken gently and smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Limefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, pepper, sauce, 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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