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Minced Spinach

A sautéed spinach dish with butter, cream, and sliced hard‑boiled egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Minced Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Wash the spinach carefully and boil until tender.

  2. Drain and rub through a colander or chop finely.

Finish and serve

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter and add the spinach, salt, and pepper.

  2. Heat until hot, then beat in the cream.

  3. Garnish with sliced hard boiled egg.

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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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, giving it its bulk and green color.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the spinach as it melts.
Cream
Adds moisture and smoothness, softening the spinach into a creamier texture.

Swap the spinach

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

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

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