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Spinach Puree

A smooth spinach puree flavored with nutmeg, salt, sugar, Bechamel sauce, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Spinach Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the puree

  1. Pick and boil the spinach until tender.

  2. Pound the spinach and add nutmeg, salt, sugar, and Bechamel sauce.

  3. Mix over low heat until combined.

  4. Pass the mixture through a sieve or tammy to create a pulp.

Finish and serve

  1. Warm the puree before serving and stir in the fresh 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.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 and provides its body and green colour.
Bechamel sauce
Adds creaminess and richness, helping the puree hold a smooth, velvety texture.
Fresh butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel when stirred in at the end.
Grated nutmeg
Contributes a warm, aromatic flavour that complements the spinach.

The step that matters

Passing the mixture through a sieve or tammy. Spinach fibres stay coarse after pounding. Pressing the mixture through a fine sieve breaks down the remaining fibres and removes stringy pieces, giving a smooth pulp.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, sugar, sauce, 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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