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Spinach, to Boil

Boiled spinach seasoned with salt, butter, and pepper, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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, to Boil

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick the spinach carefully, removing any stalks or weeds.

  2. Wash the spinach in several waters to remove grit. Wash the spinach in a large pan, then transfer it to a second pan to leave grit behind.

  3. If necessary, repeat the washing process until the spinach is clean.

Boil

  1. Place the spinach in a large saucepan with ½ pint of water and the salt. Press down frequently with a wooden spoon while cooking.

  2. Boil the spinach for 10-15 minutes until tender.

  3. Drain the spinach in a colander. Squeeze the spinach dry. Chop the spinach finely.

Finish and serve

  1. In a clean saucepan, combine the spinach with butter and pepper. Stir the mixture until hot.

  2. Serve the spinach on a hot dish. Garnish with toasted bread slices.

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

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

  3. Spinach + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,583 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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 becomes soft and tender when boiled and chopped.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy texture to the cooked spinach.

The step that matters

Squeeze the spinach dry. Boiled spinach holds a lot of water. Leaving it wet dilutes the buttery flavour and makes the dish watery on the plate, so it should be squeezed well before chopping and reheating.

Swap the spinach

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper. 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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