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Spinach, Boiled

A boiled spinach dish seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and flour, served hot with croutons or puff pastry.

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, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the stalks and wash the spinach in cold water until free from grit.

  2. Place the spinach in a saucepan with 1 tablespoon of salt and just enough water to cover the bottom.

Cook and finish

  1. Boil uncovered for 15 to 25 minutes, occasionally pressing it down and turning it with a wooden spoon.

  2. Once cooked, rub the spinach through a fine sieve into a stewpan.

  3. Add the butter and season with pepper.

  4. Sprinkle in the flour and stir over the heat for 5 to 6 minutes.

  5. Serve hot, garnished with croutons of fried or toasted bread or fleurons of puff pastry.

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. Spinach + flourtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 body of the dish and, once cooked and sieved, gives its smooth, soft texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the purée a silky mouthfeel and flavour.
Flour
Thickens the cooked spinach as it is stirred over heat, so it holds together rather than running.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour over the heat. Flour thickens only when heated while being stirred; if it is added to wet spinach without steady stirring it can clump, and undercooked flour leaves a raw, pasty taste. Keeping the heat moderate and stirring for the full time lets the starch swell evenly and smooth the purée.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, 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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