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Spinach with Cheese Sauce

Spinach cooked in a cheese sauce made from shortening, flour, milk, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Spinach with Cheese Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Wash the spinach thoroughly and soak in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Cover with boiling water, add salt, and cook for 15 minutes without a cover.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. Melt the shortening in a saucepan, then blend in the flour, salt, and pepper.

  2. Thicken the mixture in a double boiler with the milk.

  3. Add the grated cheese and stir until melted.

Serve

  1. Drain the spinach, press out excess water, and serve topped with the cheese sauce.

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. Spinach + flourtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 provides its green, vegetable base.
Shortening
Fat that coats the flour and starts the sauce base, carrying flavor.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as its starch swells with heat.
Milk
Liquid that forms the body of the sauce, giving it a creamy texture.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce, adding rich flavor and a smooth, stretchy body.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce gently in a double boiler. Flour thickens milk as its starch swells with heat, but direct high heat can scorch the milk or leave lumps. A double boiler applies gentle, even heat so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the spinach

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, pepper, cheese. 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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