Skip to main content
Main

Spinach, Boiled

A simple boiled spinach dish seasoned with butter, salt, pepper, and garnished with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Remove the stalks from the spinach and wash it thoroughly.

  2. Let it sit for a minute to allow grit to settle, then drain.

Cook

  1. Place the spinach in a saucepan with no additional moisture and add a sprinkle of salt.

  2. Boil for 10 to 15 minutes until tender, then drain and press in a colander.

  3. Chop the spinach and return it to a clean, dry saucepan.

  4. Add the butter, salt, and pepper, and stir for a few minutes.

  5. Transfer to a hot dish and garnish with croutons.

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

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

  3. 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 bulk of the dish; cooking collapses its leaves into a tender, soft mass.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the cooked leaves and giving a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Draining and pressing the spinach after boiling. Spinach holds a lot of water, and excess moisture left in the leaves dilutes the flavour and makes the dish watery. Pressing it well in a colander before chopping and reheating with butter gives a concentrated, well-seasoned result.

Swap the spinach

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper. 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 SoupSpinach Soup50 recipesCream of SpinachCream of Spinach29 recipesCreamed Spinach SoupCreamed Spinach Soup19 recipesSpinach and EggsSpinach and Eggs8 recipes