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Creamed Potatoes

Creamed potatoes are boiled potatoes mixed with butter, sweet drippings, milk or cream, and salted to taste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Creamed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a chopping bowl, salt the chopped potatoes.

Make the creamed potatoes

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter and sweet drippings over low heat until hot but not browned.

  2. Add the potatoes to the skillet and stir until the butter is evenly distributed.

  3. Pour in the milk or cream and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally for 5 to 8 minutes.

  4. If the mixture is too watery, boil for a few more minutes to achieve a creamy consistency.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Cold boiled potatoes
Provide the starch that thickens into a creamy, soft body when simmered with liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for rich flavor and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel.
Sweet drippings
Contribute savory, roasted flavor and additional fat to the dish.
Milk or cream
Supplies liquid and milk solids that form a creamy sauce as it reduces.

The step that matters

Boiling the milk or cream with the potatoes. Boiling too hard or too long can cause the dairy to scorch on the bottom of the skillet or separate. Stirring keeps the milk solids and fat evenly mixed as the liquid thickens into a creamy consistency.

“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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