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Creamed Potatoes

Creamed potatoes are boiled potatoes mixed with white sauce and served warm, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Creamed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and peel the potatoes, then cut them into dice.

Cook and combine

  1. Cook the potatoes in boiling water with the salt added, using as little water as possible to keep them dry when soft.

  2. Once soft, combine the potatoes with the white sauce.

  3. Transfer to a warm dish and sprinkle with parsley.

  4. Serve.

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 + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy bulk that holds the creamy white sauce.
White sauce
Adds moisture, richness and a smooth, creamy coating to the potatoes.

The step that matters

Cooking the potatoes in as little water as possible. Using minimal water keeps the potatoes dry once soft, so they absorb the white sauce rather than becoming watery and diluting the dish.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, parsley. 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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