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Spinach

Boiled spinach seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and served with hard‑boiled eggs and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Carefully inspect each spinach leaf, discarding any wilted or discolored ones.

  2. Wash the spinach thoroughly, changing the water until all grit is removed.

  3. Soak the spinach in cold water for a while.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil salted water and add the spinach, cooking for 20 to 30 minutes.

  2. Drain the spinach and cut it into coarse pieces.

  3. Place the spinach in a hot dish, sprinkle with pepper and small bits of butter.

  4. Keep in a warming oven for a few moments.

  5. Garnish with slices of hard-boiled eggs and serve with vinegar.

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. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Spinach + vinegartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together866 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fresh spinach
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the flavor of the other ingredients.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the warm spinach and softening its flavor.
Hard-boiled eggs
Adds protein and a mild, creamy contrast to the tender greens.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the cooked spinach.

Swap the spinach

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, egg, vinegar. 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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