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Spinach Pudding

A savory pudding made with spinach, veal forcemeat, butter, béchamel, stock, vegetables, eggs, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Spinach Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Pick, clean, and wash the spinach; then chop, boil, drain, and cool it.

Make the pudding

  1. In a saucepan, combine the spinach with the butter, béchamel sauce, and stock, and simmer for 5 minutes.

  2. Once cool, add the forcemeat, egg yolks, and seasoning.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold and cook in a bain-marie.

Serve

  1. Turn out onto a dish and garnish with cooked vegetables cut into fanciful shapes.

  2. Serve with Spanish sauce.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Spinach + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together320 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Spinach + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Spinach + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together870 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Spinach
Forms the bulk of the pudding and gives it its green colour and body.
Veal forcemeat
Adds savoury richness and a firmer, sliceable texture to the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set on gentle cooking, holding the pudding together.
Béchamel sauce
Adds moisture and creaminess, keeping the spinach mixture soft and smooth.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cooking the pudding in a bain-marie. Eggs set into a custard-like texture when heated gently. Water-bath cooking keeps the temperature even and moderate, so the pudding firms without curdling, becoming spongy or cracking.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, veal, butter, sauce, turnip, carrot, egg):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, veal, butter, sauce, turnip, carrot, egg. 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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