Skip to main content
Main

Spinach

A sautéed spinach dish flavored with beef jelly, cayenne pepper, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Wash the spinach thoroughly.

  2. Boil the spinach until tender.

  3. Drain the spinach.

  4. Place the spinach in cold water.

  5. Squeeze out excess water from the spinach.

  6. Chop the spinach finely.

Make the dish

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add the chopped spinach to the stewpan.

  3. Cook over low heat until the spinach is dry.

  4. Add the flour to the stewpan.

  5. Moisten the mixture with beef jelly.

  6. Add a little warm water to the mixture.

  7. Stir in the cayenne pepper.

  8. Ensure the mixture is smooth and thick.

  9. Add cream while cooking for a creamier version.

  10. Add cream just 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. 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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  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 dish; cooking and drying it concentrates its flavour and gives body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving the spinach a smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the mixture as it cooks, helping it become smooth and thick.
Beef jelly
Moistens the mixture and adds meaty savouriness and body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Cook the spinach until dry. Spinach holds a lot of water; if it stays wet, the flour cannot thicken it properly and the mixture turns thin and watery. Cooking it down over low heat drives off moisture before the flour and jelly are added.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, beef, 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes