Name: Boiled Leg of Lamb, with Spinach
Ingredients: 1 small leg of lamb; ½ sieve of spinach; ¼ pound fresh butter; ¼ teaspoon salt; 2 teaspoons sugar; ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg; 1 tablespoon flour; 8 tablespoons melted butter; 4 tablespoons cream or milk

Why it works: Spinach and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 603 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Boiled Leg of Lamb, with Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

Pick the spinach.
Wash the spinach.
Boil the spinach.
Drain the spinach well.
Chop the spinach finely.

Make the sauce

Place the chopped spinach in a stewpan with butter, salt, sugar, and nutmeg.
Stir the mixture over heat until hot.
Add flour to the mixture.
Add melted butter to the mixture.
Add cream or milk to the mixture.
Boil the mixture for 2-3 minutes while stirring.

Serve

Boil the leg of lamb until cooked through.
Pour the sauce over the lamb.
Serve.

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.

Spinach + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together603 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Spinach + flourtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,564 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lamb leg: Provides the main protein, which becomes tender and cooked through when boiled.
Spinach: Supplies the green base and bulk of the sauce, adding earthy flavour and moisture.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Flour: Thickens the spinach mixture so the sauce clings to the lamb rather than running off.
Cream or milk: Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the thickened spinach into a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the hot spinach. Flour must be stirred in evenly so it hydrates and thickens the sauce without lumps. Boiling the mixture while stirring then cooks out the raw flour taste and sets the thickness.

Swap the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, butter, sugar, nutmeg, flour, cream):

Spinachthe original
Leekfits about as well
Sweet potatofits about as well
Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, sugar, nutmeg, flour, 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.

Spinach Soup50 recipes

Cream of Spinach29 recipes

Creamed Spinach Soup19 recipes

Spinach and Eggs8 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Boiled Leg of Lamb, with Spinach