Why it works: Spinach and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,583 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓
Spinach.
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the spinach
Boil the spinach in plenty of water until very green, then drain.
Press the moisture from the spinach between two plates and chop it finely.
Finish and serve
In a clean saucepan, combine the chopped spinach with butter and stir until well mixed and hot.
Smooth the mixture in a dish, mark it in dice, and serve immediately.
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.
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Spinach + buttertop 24% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,583 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fresh spinach
- Provides the main body and bright green color of the dish.
- Fresh butter
- Adds richness and a silky texture that coats the chopped spinach.
The step that matters
Pressing the moisture from the spinach. Boiled spinach holds a lot of water, and leaving it in makes the dish watery and dilutes the butter. Pressing it dry lets the butter coat the leaves and keeps the texture thick.
“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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