Name: Stewed Spinach and Eggs
Ingredients: fresh spinach; coarse sea salt; eggs; orange; butter

Why it works: Spinach and orange work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 276 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Stewed Spinach and Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Pick and wash the spinach thoroughly.
Place the spinach in a saucepan with a little coarse sea salt and cover it tightly.
Shake the pan often until the spinach is tender and bright green.
Drain the spinach in a sieve and lay it on a serving dish.
In a separate pot, bring water to a boil.
Break the desired number of eggs into cups.
Once the water is boiling, gently add the eggs to poach them.
Use an egg slice to remove the poached eggs and place them on the spinach.
Garnish the dish with orange quarters and serve with melted butter.

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 + orangetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together276 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Spinach + eggtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,323 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Orange + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,301 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Spinach + buttertop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,583 recipes

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