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Spinach Dumplings

Spinach dumplings are boiled balls made from spinach, eggs, butter, lemon juice, wheatmeal, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Pick and wash the spinach.

  2. Boil the spinach with the onions without water until tender.

  3. Drain the spinach and chop it finely.

Make the dumplings

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped spinach with the beaten eggs, lemon juice, butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Add enough wheatmeal to form a soft paste.

  3. Shape the mixture into balls and dust them with flour.

  4. Drop the dumplings into boiling water and cook for 5 to 10 minutes.

  5. Serve with potatoes and gravy.

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. Spinach + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

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

  3. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Spinach + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the chopped spinach mixture so the dumplings hold their shape when cooked.
Allinson fine wheatmeal
Absorbs moisture and forms the soft paste that gives the dumplings their body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.
Spinach
Forms the main body of the dumplings and adds its green flavour and moisture.

The step that matters

Drop the dumplings into boiling water and cook for 5 to 10 minutes. Dumplings held in water that is not at a full boil can absorb water and go soggy or break apart. A steady boil sets the egg and starch on the outside so they keep their shape.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, egg, butter, lemon, pepper. 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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