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Spinach Puree

A creamy spinach puree made with butter, flour, stock, cream, pepper, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,400 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Spinach Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Wash and pick the spinach thoroughly.

  2. Boil in a pan of water with 1 teaspoon salt per quart for 8 to 10 minutes until tender.

  3. Drain and press the spinach, then rub it through a wire sieve.

Make the puree

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and add the flour.

  2. Once the butter is dissolved, add the stock and cream; boil for 3 minutes.

  3. Stir in salt, pepper, sugar, and the spinach; mix thoroughly and reheat.

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 + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Forms the bulk of the puree and gives its color and flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor through the puree.
Flour
Cooked with the butter to form a roux that thickens the puree.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture.
White stock
Liquid that loosens the roux into a smooth sauce base.

The step that matters

Rubbing the spinach through a sieve. Pressing and sieving breaks down the cooked leaves and removes fibrous bits, so the puree is smooth rather than stringy or gritty.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Arrowrootfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper, butter, flour, 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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