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Spinach

Spinach sautéed in butter, seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,583 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Wash the spinach in several waters to remove grit, lifting it out with your hands.

  2. Double each leaf together and tear away the stalk.

Cook the spinach

  1. Place the spinach in a large iron pan with the water that clings to it.

  2. Stir the spinach continuously to prevent burning and boil until tender, about 10 to 15 minutes.

  3. Pour the spinach into a colander and press out excess water.

  4. Chop the spinach finely or rub it through a wire sieve.

Finish with butter

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the spinach to the melted butter and season with salt.

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 + 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 main body of the dish, and cooking it down softens its leaves into a tender purée-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving the cooked spinach a smooth, glossy finish.

The step that matters

Stir the spinach continuously while it boils. Spinach has a lot of surface area and little liquid, so it can scorch on the bottom of the pan. Constant stirring spreads the heat and keeps it from burning while it softens.

“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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