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Spinach and Potatoes

A dish of mashed potatoes, sautéed spinach, and poached eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 and Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes and cabbage

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them with butter, milk, pepper, and salt.

  2. Boil the savoy cabbage until tender, then mince it and mix with butter, pepper, and salt.

  3. Butter a mold and layer the mashed potatoes at the bottom.

Cook the spinach

  1. In a stewpan, combine spinach, sugar, butter, nutmeg, and salt. Cover tightly and cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  2. Strain the spinach and squeeze lemon juice over it.

Assemble and serve

  1. Turn out the mold onto a plate, arrange the spinach around it, and place poached eggs in between.

  2. Serve immediately while hot.

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. Potato + spinachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Cabbage + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together190 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Pepper + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the mashed base that holds the shape of the mold.
Spinach
Provides the main green vegetable bulk and its earthy flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth texture in the potatoes and spinach.
Savoy cabbage
Adds a mild, tender vegetable layer that is minced and seasoned.
Eggs
Add protein and a soft, runny yolk that enriches the dish when served.

The step that matters

Cover tightly and cook the spinach for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Spinach is mostly water, and a tight lid traps steam so it wilts evenly and softens. Stirring keeps it from scorching on the base of the pan while the released liquid evaporates.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, milk, pepper, spinach, sugar, nutmeg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, milk, pepper, spinach, sugar, nutmeg. 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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