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Spinach

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

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and drain the spinach.

  2. Put spinach into boiling salted water and boil until tender.

  3. Pour into a colander and press out the water.

Season and serve

  1. Season with butter, pepper, and additional salt if needed.

  2. Serve hot with vinegar and hard boiled eggs cut into rings.

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. Butter + peppertop 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

Spinach
Forms the bulk of the dish; boiling softens its leaves until tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the cooked leaves with a smooth flavor.
Hard boiled eggs
Add protein-rich body and a mild, creamy contrast to the greens.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the cooked spinach.

The step that matters

Pressing out the water. Spinach holds a large amount of water. If it is not pressed dry after boiling, the dish turns soggy and watery and the butter and seasoning will not cling to the leaves.

Swap the spinach

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

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

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