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Potatoes in White Sauce

Boiled potatoes served with a white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potatoes in White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the potatoes.

  2. Put them in water seasoned with salt and boil for five minutes.

  3. Strain off the water.

Make and serve

  1. Prepare the white sauce as directed elsewhere.

  2. Add the potatoes to the sauce and simmer gently until soft but not broken.

  3. Serve the potatoes on a hot dish and pour the sauce over them.

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

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

  2. Potato + saucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 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
Provide starch that gives body and a soft, tender texture when cooked.
White sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy coating that carries flavour over the potatoes.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until soft but not broken. Vigorous boiling agitates the potato slices and swells their starch cells until the outer layers split, so gentle heat keeps the slices intact while they soften.

“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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