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Cream of Spinach Soup

A creamy soup made from cooked spinach, flour, stock, butter, cream or milk, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cream of Spinach Soup

Why it works: Spinach and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,400 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Cream of Spinach Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Cook the spinach in a pot for 30 minutes without adding water.

  2. Chop the cooked spinach finely.

  3. Rub the chopped spinach through a sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Combine the stock, flour, and seasoning in a pot.

  2. Simmer the mixture for 5 minutes.

  3. Stir in the hot cream or milk.

  4. 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

  3. Spinach + flourtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

Flour and butter 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

Spinach
Forms the main body and green flavour of the soup once puréed through a sieve.
Flour
Thickens the stock so the soup becomes smooth and creamy rather than watery.
Stock
Provides the liquid base and savoury flavour for the soup.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Stir in the hot cream or milk. Adding cold dairy to a hot soup can cause it to cool suddenly and may cause the dairy to curdle or separate. Warming the cream or milk first helps it blend in smoothly and keeps the soup silky.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Spinachthe original
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, cream, 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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