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Young Potatoes

Boiled young potatoes mixed with butter, flour, and cream, then simmered briefly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Young Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the potatoes

  1. Wash and scrape the skin off the young potatoes.

  2. Place them in a saucepan and cover with hot water.

  3. Boil gently until tender, then pour off the water.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, rub the flour into the butter.

  2. Add the butter mixture and cream or milk to the potatoes.

  3. Stew uncovered for five minutes.

  4. Serve in a hot dish.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Young potatoes
Provide the main bulk and starch that gives the mash its body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the mash as its starch binds with the liquid during stewing.
Sweet cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the mash into a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Rubbing the flour into the butter before adding it. Coating the flour particles in fat lets them disperse evenly into the hot potatoes and cream instead of forming lumps, so the mash thickens smoothly.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream. 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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