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To Stew Spinach

A creamy spinach stew simmered with butter, cream, and seasonings, optionally served with poached eggs and toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

To Stew Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Pick and wash the spinach well.

  2. Put it in a pan with salt and water, shaking the pan often.

  3. When tender, drain and squeeze out excess water.

Stew and serve

  1. Return to the pan, add cream, pepper, and butter.

  2. Stew for about 15 minutes, stirring frequently.

  3. Serve with poached eggs and sippets of fried or toasted bread if desired.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Spinach + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 body of the stew and wilts down to a tender, soft texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture as it simmers with the spinach.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich mouthfeel and a mellow, savory flavor.

The step that matters

Squeezing out the excess water. Spinach holds a lot of water. If it is not squeezed well after cooking, the extra liquid dilutes the cream and makes the stew thin and watery.

Swap the spinach

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

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

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

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