Why it works: Spinach and bread work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Another Common English Receipt for Spinach
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove the spinach leaves from the stalks, discarding any weeds.
Wash the spinach thoroughly to remove all sand and dirt.
Cook
Place the spinach in a large saucepan with just enough water to cover it.
Add the salt and press the spinach down with a wooden spoon.
Cook for about 15 minutes, stirring often, until tender.
Finish and serve
Drain excess moisture and chop the spinach on a hot plate.
Serve immediately with fried bread sippets on the side.
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.
-
Spinach + breadtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fresh spinach leaves
- Forms the main body of the dish and wilts down to a soft, tender texture when cooked.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the spinach and helps draw out moisture as it cooks.
The step that matters
Drain excess moisture before chopping. Spinach holds a lot of water. Leaving excess liquid in the pan dilutes the flavour and makes the dish watery and loose rather than tender and concentrated.
“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.
More spinach recipes
You might also like
Brown Bread461 recipes
White Bread80 recipes
Bread Omelette60 recipes
Oatmeal Bread51 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.