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Spinach a LA Creme

Spinach cooked with butter, cream, and sugar, garnished with fried croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 a LA Creme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Wash and pick the spinach.

  2. Boil a pot of water with a little salt and soda.

  3. Add the spinach and boil until tender, about 10 to 15 minutes.

  4. Drain the spinach in a wire sieve and squeeze out all the water.

  5. Rub the spinach through the sieve with a wooden spoon.

Finish and serve

  1. In a saucepan, combine the spinach with butter, cream, and sugar.

  2. Garnish with fried croutons before serving.

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).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 bulk of the dish, giving its green colour and vegetable body.
Double cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the purée.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the earthy flavour of the spinach.

The step that matters

Squeezing out the water after draining. Spinach holds a large amount of water, and any left in will dilute the cream and butter and make the purée thin and watery. Squeezing thoroughly keeps the final texture thick and rich.

“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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