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Browned Potatoes

Browned potatoes are boiled, then sautéed in butter and finished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Browned Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Drain and let them cool slightly.

Brown and serve

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the potatoes and cook until they are delicately browned on all sides.

  3. Sprinkle with chopped parsley before serving.

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

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

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy body of the dish, which softens when boiled and browns in the butter.
Butter
Conducts heat to the potato surfaces and promotes browning while adding richness.

The step that matters

Browning the potatoes in the butter. Potatoes need enough surface heat and dryness to brown rather than steam. Letting them cool slightly after draining helps remove surface moisture, so the butter can brown their exterior evenly over medium heat.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter. 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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