Why it works: Spinach and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 603 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Spinach
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the spinach
Wash the spinach in one bucket of water, allowing dirt to settle in the bottom.
Lift the spinach into the second bucket after a few minutes, then rinse the spinach one or two times.
If stalks are large, pick the spinach and place it in boiling salted water.
Cook and serve
Boil the spinach for about 15 minutes until tender, then drain.
Chop the spinach finely in a basin with a knife and fork.
Return the chopped spinach to a saucepan with a small piece of butter to heat it thoroughly.
Serve the spinach in a vegetable dish, optionally garnished with halved hard-boiled eggs or poached eggs.
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.
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Spinach + nutmegtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together603 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Spinach + lemontop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,109 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,920 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth finish when the chopped spinach is reheated.
- Fresh spinach
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked until tender and then chopped.
The step that matters
Boil the spinach until tender, then drain. Spinach is mostly water and collapses quickly. Cooking it until just tender softens the leaves, and draining well removes excess liquid so the chopped spinach does not turn watery when reheated.
Swap the nutmeg
The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, butter, egg, cream, lemon):
- Nutmegthe original
- Parsleyfits about as well
- Tarragonfits about as well
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, butter, egg, cream, lemon. 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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