Skip to main content
Main

Broiled Potatoes with Ham

Broiled potatoes topped with a sautéed ham, shallot/onion, and parsley mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Broiled Potatoes with Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice cold boiled potatoes into thick slices.

  2. Grease a gridiron and broil the potato slices until browned.

  3. Finely chop cold boiled ham, shallot or onion, and parsley.

  4. Fry the mixture in butter until lightly browned.

Serve

  1. Arrange the potatoes neatly on a plate and pour the ham mixture over them.

  2. Serve very hot.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Potato + shallottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together272 recipes

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

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled potatoes
Form the base of the dish, browning on the gridiron to develop flavor on the surface.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, carrying flavor and helping the ham mixture brown lightly.
Cold boiled ham
Supplies savory, salty meat flavor that is the main flavor of the topping.
Shallot or onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens and browns in butter.

The step that matters

Fry the mixture in butter until lightly browned. Frying over moderate heat browns the ham and onion through the Maillard reaction for flavor, while burning gives bitter flavors and dries the mixture.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, ham, shallot, parsley):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, shallot, parsley. 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes