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Hashed Potatoes, Browned

Mashed potatoes browned in butter and cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Hashed Potatoes, Browned

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Moisten the prepared potatoes with 2 tablespoons of cream and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of cream sauce to the potatoes and mix the potatoes well.

Brown and serve

  1. Melt a small piece of butter in an omelet pan over low heat.

  2. Add the potatoes to the pan and let them brown slowly.

  3. Shape the potatoes nicely in the pan like an omelet.

  4. Turn the potatoes onto a dish 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and brown into a crisp crust on the outside.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness so the potatoes stay tender inside.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor and helps the potatoes brown in the pan.
Cream sauce
Adds extra moisture and richness to bind the potatoes together.

The step that matters

Let the potatoes brown slowly over low heat. Low heat lets the starch on the potato surface caramelize and form an even golden crust without burning. Higher heat scorches the outside while the inside stays underdone.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper, butter, sauce. 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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