Name: Spinach a LA Creme Au Jus
Ingredients: 1 pound spinach; 2 tablespoons butter; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; ¼ teaspoon nutmeg; 1 teaspoon sugar; ½ cup cream; Sippets of bread, fried in butter

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 a LA Creme Au Jus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

Scald the spinach in boiling water until done, then drain it.
Pound the spinach finely and place it in a stewpan.

Cook and serve

Add butter, salt, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, and cream to the spinach.
Cook over low heat until heated through.
Garnish with snippets of bread fried in butter before serving.

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.

Spinach + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together603 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,400 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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 provides its body and green flavour.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, giving the spinach a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Cream: Adds moisture and richness, helping the spinach turn smooth and creamy when heated.
Sugar: Adds a little sweetness that balances the bitterness of the cooked spinach.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat until heated through. Cream can separate or curdle if it boils hard, so gentle heat keeps the sauce smooth. Spinach also releases water as it heats, so gentle cooking prevents a thin, watery result.

Swap the spinach

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

Capsicumfits about as well
Spinachthe original
Potatofits about as well
Leekfits about as well

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

Brown Bread461 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

Oatmeal Bread51 recipes

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Spinach a LA Creme Au Jus