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Spinach Au Jus

A dish of young spinach simmered in water, then mixed with gravy, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Au Jus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spinach

  1. Select young and tender spinach, or pick over and tear off only the tender parts of the leaves.

  2. Put the spinach in a saucepan with 1 cup of boiling water and simmer for 10 minutes without covering.

  3. Drain the spinach thoroughly in a colander, pressing out all moisture.

  4. Chop the drained spinach finely, and optionally rub it through a colander to make a puree.

Season and serve

  1. Add gravy or meat juice, butter, pepper, salt, and sugar to the spinach.

  2. Heat the mixture in a saucepan until thoroughly hot and 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.

  1. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Spinach + meattop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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; cooking and draining concentrates it into a soft, tender mass.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, smooth mouthfeel and carries flavour through the greens.
Gravy or meat juice
Adds savoury depth and salt-based flavour that complements the mild spinach.
Sugar
Adds a trace of sweetness that softens the bitterness of cooked spinach.

The step that matters

Draining the spinach thoroughly. Spinach holds a large amount of water. If moisture is not pressed out, the dish turns watery and dilutes the gravy and butter, so the flavour and texture suffer.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, pepper, sugar. 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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