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Creamed Spinach

Creamed spinach is spinach cooked with butter, cream, and pepper, served with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Creamed Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Boil the spinach in a small amount of water for 10–15 minutes.

  2. Drain well and chop finely.

Cook and serve

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over gentle heat.

  2. Add the chopped spinach and stir until the butter is absorbed.

  3. Season with pepper and add the boiled cream.

  4. Simmer for about 5 minutes.

  5. Serve with small pieces of 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. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

  3. Spinach + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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 dish, and its retained water is why it must be drained well.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel as it coats the chopped spinach.
Boiled cream
Adds richness and moisture, loosening the spinach into a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Drain well and chop finely. Spinach holds a lot of water after boiling. Excess liquid left in the leaves dilutes the butter and cream, leaving the dish watery instead of creamy and thick.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Spinachthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionfits about as well

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