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Puree of Spinach

A smooth puree made from boiled spinach, stock, sugar, salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Puree of Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Wash and press all water from the spinach.

  2. Boil the spinach in the stock until tender.

  3. Pound the spinach and strain it through a fine sieve.

Finish the puree

  1. Return the strained spinach to the stock.

  2. Add sugar, salt, white pepper, and butter.

  3. Stir until the butter is melted and well combined.

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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. White pepper + buttertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Spinach + white peppertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together56 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Spinach + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Spinach
Forms the bulk of the puree, providing the green color, flavor and body.
Stock
Cooks the spinach and adds savory liquid that carries the flavor through the puree.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the puree a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
White sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the earthy taste of the spinach.

The step that matters

Pound and strain the spinach. Pounding breaks down the cooked leaves and straining through a fine sieve removes fibers and lumps, so the puree becomes smooth rather than stringy or grainy.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, sugar, butter. 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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