Why it works: Spinach and bread work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Modern Cookery
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the spinach
Place the spinach in a large, well‑tinned stewpan or saucepan with the water that clings to it.
Add the salt and press the spinach down with a wooden spoon, turning it often for about 15 minutes until tender.
Finish and serve
Drain excess moisture and chop the spinach quickly on a hot plate.
Serve immediately with fried bread sippets on the side.
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 + breadtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Spinach
- Forms the main body of the dish, wilting down as it cooks in its own clinging water.
The step that matters
Draining and chopping quickly on a hot plate. Spinach holds a lot of water, and excess moisture makes the dish watery and dilutes its flavour. Chopping it while hot keeps it tender and warm before serving.
“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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