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Spinach Soup

A warm soup made with spinach, meat stock, butter, egg yolks, cream, and bread.

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

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Spinach Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Add all the chopped spinach leaves and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  3. Stir with a wooden spoon, being careful not to let it burn.

  4. Pour in the meat stock and let it simmer for 20 to 30 minutes.

  5. If desired, add butter just before finishing.

Finish and serve

  1. Place thin slices of bread in a tureen.

  2. Pour the boiling soup over the bread.

  3. In a bowl, beat together the egg yolks and cream.

  4. When the soup has stopped boiling, stir in the egg mixture.

  5. Let it sit for 5 minutes off the heat.

  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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Spinach leaves (in the method)
Provides the main flavour and body of the soup as it cooks down.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup gently and give it a smooth, rich texture when stirred in.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the soup's texture alongside the egg yolks.
Meat stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its savoury flavour.
Thin slices of bread
Soak up the hot broth in the tureen, giving the soup body and a softer texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg mixture after the soup stops boiling. Egg yolks scramble and curdle when they meet boiling liquid, so the soup must be off the boil before they are added, and it should not be reheated hard afterward.

“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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