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Spinach Salad

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

Why it works: Spinach and sorrel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 204 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Spinach Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Gather young spinach leaves and wash thoroughly.

  2. Press dry and place in a salad bowl.

  3. Add chopped chives and sorrel.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt and paprika.

  5. Dress with olive oil and vinegar.

  6. Serve in the same bowl.

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 + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together204 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Chive + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Spinach + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together163 recipes

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

  4. Spinach + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Chive + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, sorrel, olive, vinegar):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Kalefits about as well
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, sorrel, olive, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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