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Puree of Spinach

A pudding of chopped spinach bound with eggs, cream, and grated roll, boiled in a floured cloth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Puree of Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Boil the spinach until tender, then drain in a sieve.

  2. Chop the spinach finely.

Make the mixture

  1. Beat the eggs and mix with cream, grated roll, nutmeg, and melted butter.

  2. Combine the spinach with the egg mixture and stir in a saucepan over low heat until thickened.

Boil and serve

  1. Wet and flour a cloth, tie it up, and boil for 1 hour.

  2. Serve the pudding with melted butter, Seville orange juice, and a sprinkle of sugar.

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 + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 pudding and adds its green flavour and moisture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it as it cooks, giving the pudding its firm structure.
Cream
Adds richness and a soft, tender texture to the set custard.
Stale roll
Absorbs liquid and helps give the pudding body without making it heavy.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel in the pudding.

The step that matters

Stirring the spinach and egg mixture over low heat. Gentle heat lets the egg proteins set slowly and evenly. Too much heat can curdle the eggs and leave the mixture grainy.

Swap the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, nutmeg, butter, pepper, sauce):

  1. Spinachthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, nutmeg, butter, pepper, sauce. 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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