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Spinach Soup

A soup made with spinach, butter, white stock, cream, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Spinach Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Wash the spinach thoroughly and remove the stalks.

  2. Boil the spinach with a small amount of baking soda and salt.

  3. Drain and pass the spinach through a fine sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the spinach and stock.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Season with pepper and salt.

  5. Stir in the cream.

  6. Serve hot.

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 + 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. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper 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

Spinach
Forms the body and bright green color of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
White stock
Provides the savory liquid that carries the spinach.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Boil the spinach with baking soda. Heat breaks down the chlorophyll that makes spinach green. A small amount of baking soda helps keep the color but can soften the leaves, so over-boiling leaves the soup dull and mushy.

Swap the spinach

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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