Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Spinach
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the spinach
Pick spinach leaves from the stems.
Wash the leaves thoroughly in spring water, changing the water several times.
Shake the spinach in a dry cloth.
Boil well-salted water.
Add the spinach to the boiling water, pressing it down with a skimmer to ensure even cooking.
Cook the spinach for 8 to 10 minutes until tender.
Drain the spinach.
Cool the spinach in fresh water.
Form the spinach into balls.
Squeeze out excess moisture.
Chop the spinach finely on a clean surface.
Make the gravy
Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Add the chopped spinach to the butter.
Stir over low heat for 10 minutes until dry.
Dredge the mixture in flour and mix well.
Gradually add veal gravy or cream.
If using cream, add sugar for a sweeter dish.
Cook briskly until the mixture is well absorbed.
Serve
Serve hot with fried bread or puff pastry.
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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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Spinach + flourtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,564 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Spinach + breadtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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 bulk of the dish and gives it its green colour and flavour.
- Butter
- Enriches the spinach and carries its flavour, adding richness to the dish.
- Flour
- Thickens the spinach mixture so it holds together rather than running loose.
- Rich veal gravy or boiling cream
- Supplies the liquid that is absorbed into the spinach, adding body and richness.
The step that matters
Squeezing out excess moisture. Spinach holds a lot of water. If it is not squeezed dry before chopping and cooking, the mixture stays watery and the flour cannot thicken it properly.
Swap the spinach
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, veal, sugar, bread):
- Leekfits better
- Shallotfits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Spinachthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, veal, sugar, bread. 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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