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Spinach Soup

A creamy soup made with spinach, stock, milk, butter, flour, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Spinach Soup

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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Wash the spinach and remove the stalks.

  2. Place the spinach in a saucepan with just enough water to cover it.

  3. Cook until tender, then drain and chop finely.

Make the soup

  1. In a separate pot, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a roux.

  2. Gradually add the white stock and milk, stirring until smooth.

  3. Add the chopped spinach, season with pepper and salt, and heat through.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 main body and green flavour of the soup.
Butter
Provides fat and richness, and forms the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells when heated in the butter and liquid.
White stock
Supplies the main liquid and savoury flavour of the soup.
Milk
Adds body, mild sweetness and a smoother texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the stock and milk to the roux. Pouring the liquid in gradually while stirring separates the flour granules so they hydrate evenly. Adding it all at once often leaves lumps that are hard to remove.

Swap the spinach

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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