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Creamed Potatoes

A creamy potato side dish made with boiled potatoes, milk, bread crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Creamed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the cold boiled potatoes, milk, bread crumbs, butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Cook over medium heat until the milk is absorbed and thickened by the bread and potatoes.

  3. Before serving, stir in the finely chopped parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and, when mashed by cooking, give it a soft, creamy body.
Milk
Provides moisture that cooks down and is absorbed, giving a creamy texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and thicken the mixture as they soften in the heat.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cook over medium heat until the milk is absorbed. Heat that is too high can scorch the milk and starches on the pan base before the liquid is absorbed. Gentle, steady heat lets the bread and potato starches thicken evenly into a creamy mass.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, milk, bread, butter, pepper):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, bread, butter, pepper. 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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