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Creamed Potatoes

Cold boiled potatoes cooked in milk, then finished with butter, salt, pepper and chopped parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Cook the potatoes

  1. Place the potatoes in a shallow pan and cover with milk.

  2. Cook until the potatoes have absorbed nearly all the milk.

Season and finish

  1. Stir in the butter.

  2. Stir in the salt and pepper.

  3. Stir in the 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the bulk, and their starch thickens the milk into a creamy body as it cooks.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that the potatoes absorb, creating the creamy texture of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cook until the potatoes have absorbed nearly all the milk. Milk can scorch on the bottom of a shallow pan as it reduces, so stir often and keep the heat moderate. The starch from the potatoes needs the liquid to thicken it into a creamy texture rather than a watery or dry result.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, 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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