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Spinach.

Spinach (Entremets) is a cooked spinach dish formed into balls, simmered in veal gravy or cream, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,564 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Spinach.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Pick spinach leaves from the stems and wash them thoroughly in spring water, changing the water several times.

  2. Shake the spinach in a dry cloth or drain it in a sieve.

  3. Boil well-salted water and add the spinach, pressing it down with a skimmer to ensure even cooking.

  4. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes until tender, then drain and cool in fresh water.

  5. Form the spinach into balls and press out excess moisture.

  6. Chop the spinach finely on a clean surface.

Make the spinach entremets

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan, add the spinach, and stir over low heat for 10 minutes until dry.

  2. Dredge in flour and mix well.

  3. Gradually add veal gravy or boiling cream, stirring until absorbed.

  4. Serve hot with fried snippets or puff pastry around it.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Spinach + vealtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together261 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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 leaves
Forms the main body of the dish and gives it its green colour and earthy flavour.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the spinach cook into a smooth, dry mass.
Flour
Thickens the spinach mixture so the liquid is absorbed and it holds its shape.
Veal gravy or boiling cream
Adds moisture and richness, and is absorbed to give the spinach a soft, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the spinach dry over low heat. Spinach holds a lot of water, and if excess moisture is not cooked off before the flour and liquid are added, the mixture becomes thin and loose instead of holding together.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, veal, sugar. 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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