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Spinach

A creamy spinach dish made with butter, cream, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,400 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Remove the stalks from the spinach and wash it thoroughly in several waters.

  2. Place the spinach in a stewpan with the water clinging to the leaves and boil until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Rub the cooked spinach through a wire sieve back into the stewpan.

  2. Add the butter, cream, pepper, and salt, then mix well until heated through.

  3. Serve with croutons around the dish.

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Spinach + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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 dish and, once puréed, gives it a smooth, soft texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel as it melts into the purée.
Cream
Adds moisture and body, making the purée smoother and creamier.

The step that matters

Rubbing the cooked spinach through a sieve. Pushing the spinach through a fine sieve breaks down its fibres and removes excess water, producing a smooth, thick purée rather than a stringy or watery one.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Spinachthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionfits about as well

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