Why it works: Spinach and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 32% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,033 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Spinach Green, for Colouring Sweet Dishes, Confectionary, or Soups
Ingredients
Directions
Extract the juice
Pound the spinach in a mortar until it becomes a pulp.
Press the pulp through a hair sieve to extract the juice.
Pour the juice into a clean jar.
Set the juice
Place the jar in a pan of simmering water.
Allow the juice to poach for 3-4 minutes until set.
Gently take the set juice with a spoon and drain it on a fine sieve.
Finish and store
For immediate use, mix the juice with finely powdered sugar.
For storage, pound it with sugar until dry, then boil to candy height and pour into cakes.
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 + sugartop 32% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,033 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Spinach
- Provides the green colour and flavour, and the juice that is gently set by poaching.
- Powdered sugar
- Adds sweetness and, for storage, helps the pulp dry out and firm up.
The step that matters
Poaching the jar of juice. Keep the water at a gentle simmer rather than a rolling boil so the juice sets evenly and softly. Too much heat or time can make it firm, dry, or grainy, so check for the set at 3-4 minutes.
“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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