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Mixed Spinach Salad

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,350 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Mixed Spinach Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash the spinach leaves thoroughly.

  2. Cut the spinach leaves finely.

  3. Mix the spinach with French dressing, mint, and onions.

  4. Add tomatoes if desired.

  5. Serve the salad with hard boiled eggs.

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. Spinach + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,350 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Mint + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together828 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Spinach + minttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together290 recipes

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

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

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, mint, onion, egg):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, mint, onion, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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