Why it works: Spinach and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 32% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,033 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Green Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Wash and drain a few handfuls of fresh young spinach.
Pound the spinach, including the stalks, until well crushed.
Twist the crushed spinach through a sieve into a saucepan, adding a little coarse sea salt.
Simmer the spinach liquor until it curdles.
Strain off the water from the curd using a fine sieve.
Rub the curd through the sieve onto a plate.
Mix some of the spinach curd with sifted sugar for coloring.
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.
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Spinach + sugartop 32% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,033 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
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