Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Spinach a LA Creme
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Cut the puff pastry into leaves or diamonds.
Bake the pastry until golden.
Boil the spinach and rub the boiled spinach through a sieve.
Make the sauce
Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour.
Add the cream and spinach to the saucepan.
Season with a little pepper and coarse sea salt.
Cook the mixture for 2 minutes.
Add the beaten egg yolks mixed with a little milk, then stir the mixture for a few minutes over the heat.
Serve
Serve the dish on an entree dish.
Garnish with the pastry border.
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.
-
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Spinach + flourtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,564 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Spinach + creamtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,130 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
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 and gives moisture, colour and a green, earthy flavour.
- Butter
- Provides fat and richness and forms the base of the flour thickener.
- Flour
- Cooked with butter into a roux that thickens the creamy sauce.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken and enrich the sauce as they gently set with heat.
- Puff pastry
- Bakes into crisp, flaky layers that add crunch and a golden border.
The step that matters
Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolk proteins set at moderate heat, so the yolks must be mixed with milk and stirred over gentle heat, not boiled. Too much heat makes them scramble and the sauce grainy.
Swap the spinach
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, cream, egg):
- Leekfits better
- Chivefits about as well
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Spinachthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, 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.
You might also like
Spinach Soup50 recipes
Cream of Spinach29 recipes
Creamed Spinach Soup19 recipes
Spinach and Eggs8 recipesThe 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.