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Spinach

Spinach cakes are small, pressed spinach cakes cooked with butter and cream, served with eggs and toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Press spinach in a sieve until dry.

Cook

  1. In a stewpan, combine spinach, butter, and cream or milk.

  2. Stir over medium heat until the mixture is dry.

Shape and serve

  1. Use a hot egg-cup-sized mold to shape the spinach, pressing it in firmly.

  2. Turn out the shaped spinach and keep it hot while repeating the process.

  3. Garnish the dish with the spinach shapes or serve separately with eggs and toast.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Spinach (in the method)
Forms the body of the cakes once its water is pressed out and it is dried in the pan.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the spinach a smoother, silkier texture.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, helping the spinach bind into a soft, cohesive mass.

The step that matters

Stir over medium heat until the mixture is dry. Drying the spinach mixture thoroughly lets it hold its shape in the mold. If it stays wet, the cakes will be loose and may collapse when turned out.

“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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