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Spinach Stewed with Cream

A creamy spinach stew made with butter, cream, and salt, served with fried paste or bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Spinach Stewed with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Boil the spinach until tender, then chop it finely.

  2. Strain off the excess liquid.

Cook and finish

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped spinach and salt, stirring well as it cooks.

  3. Gradually add the cream until the mixture reaches a proper thickness.

  4. Garnish with fried paste or bread before serving.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Spinach + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  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
Provides the bulk and the main vegetable flavour of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the spinach.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture and richness, and thickens the spinach as it reduces.

The step that matters

Adding the cream gradually. Cream added all at once can make the mixture too loose or uneven. Adding it slowly lets you stop once the spinach reaches the right thickness, since the cream thickens as it reduces and coats the leaves.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, bread. 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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