Name: Spinach Toast
Ingredients: 2 cups fresh spinach, chopped; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; 2 slices black or white bread; broth or spinach water; 2 hard boiled eggs

Why it works: Spinach and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,109 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Spinach Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the spinach as fine as possible.
Mix the chopped spinach with butter and lemon juice.

Assemble and serve

Soften the bread with broth or spinach water.
Add the spinach mixture to the softened bread.
Serve with hard boiled eggs, using only the yolks if the stomach is delicate.

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.

Spinach + lemontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,109 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Spinach + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Spinach: Provides the main body and earthy flavour of the topping.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, helping the spinach taste rounded and carry over the bread.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the spinach and balances the butter.
Bread: Acts as the base that softens with broth and holds the spinach topping.
Hard boiled eggs: Add protein and a creamy texture to the finished toast.