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Potato Fricasse

A stew of sliced salt pork, onion, and potatoes simmered in water with black pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Fricasse

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a stewpan, brown the sliced salt pork.

  2. Add the sliced onion and a little cold water; cook for a few minutes.

  3. Add the cut-up potatoes and black pepper.

  4. Cover with cold water and bring to a hard boil for 2 hours.

  5. If the mixture is not thick enough half an hour before serving, remove the cover and boil until it thickens.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Salt pork
Renders fat for browning and flavours the whole pot.
Potatoes
Break down as they cook and thicken the liquid into a starchy sauce.
Onion
Softens and adds sweetness and savoury depth to the base.

The step that matters

Boiling the mixture uncovered to thicken. Potato starch thickens the liquid only as water evaporates. Removing the cover at the right time lets excess moisture reduce, so the fricassée thickens instead of staying thin.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, potato, 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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