Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
To Boil New Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and boil
Wash the potatoes and rub off the skins with a coarse cloth.
Place them in boiling salted water and cook until tender, about 20 to 30 minutes. Test with a fork.
Drain the water when done.
Dry and serve
Let the potatoes sit by the fire with the lid partially removed until dry.
Transfer to a hot serving dish and add a piece of butter the size of a walnut.
Serve hot, plain, or with melted butter.
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.
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- New potatoes
- Starchy flesh that cooks to a soft, tender interior once boiled.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a silky coating to the hot potatoes.
The step that matters
Test with a fork. Potatoes are done when a fork slides through the centre with no resistance. Starch in the flesh gelatinises as it cooks, so undercooked potatoes stay firm and chalky inside, while overcooking makes them crumble and fall apart.
“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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