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To Boil Spinach

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,583 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

To Boil Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pick each spinach leaf from the stem and wash thoroughly in several waters.

  2. Drain the spinach in a colander.

  3. Boil the spinach in a large saucepan with water for a mild flavor, or in very little water for a bitter flavor.

  4. Add a little salt and press the spinach down frequently while it cooks until soft.

  5. Spread a towel over a colander and pour the cooked spinach into it.

  6. Squeeze out the excess water, chop the spinach finely, and place it in a stew pan.

  7. Add a little salt and a bit of butter, stirring and beating for one minute.

  8. Transfer the spinach to a flat dish, marking it in squares with a knife for easy serving.

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 + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,583 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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