Name: New Potatoes
Ingredients: new potatoes; coarse sea salt; butter; chives; parsley; cream; black pepper

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

New Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Boil new potatoes with the skin on until tender.
Peel the potatoes and dry them on the stove.
Season with coarse sea salt, or cover with melted butter and finely chopped chives or parsley.
For a dressing, mix a little cream with black pepper and salt, or cover with cream sauce.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + chivetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together611 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,150 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

Swap the chive

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

Carrotfits about as well
Chivethe original
Spinachfits about as well
Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, parsley, cream, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.