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Cream Spinach

Spinach cooked in butter, cream, salt, and pepper.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Wash the tender parts of the spinach thoroughly.

  2. Place the spinach in a large stew pan.

  3. Cover the spinach with boiling salted water.

  4. Cook for 20 minutes.

  5. Drain the spinach well.

  6. Chop the spinach finely.

Finish the creamed spinach

  1. Return the chopped spinach to the kettle.

  2. Add butter, salt, and pepper to the spinach. Stir until hot and the butter is melted.

  3. Add cream. Beat until light and creamy.

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

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Tender spinach
Forms the bulk of the dish and, once chopped, gives it its soft, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, melting into the spinach to give a smooth mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, and beating it in makes the mixture light and creamy.

The step that matters

Drain the spinach well. Spinach holds a lot of cooking water. If it stays wet, the added butter and cream will thin out and the dish will be watery rather than creamy.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Spinachthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionfits about as well

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