Name: Potatoes, with White Sauce
Ingredients: cooked potatoes; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons flour; 1 cup milk or cream; 2 tablespoons chives, chopped; 2 tablespoons parsley, chopped; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; ¼ teaspoon nutmeg

Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Potatoes, with White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the cooked potatoes into pieces.

Make the white sauce

In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat and whisk in the flour until smooth.
Gradually add the milk or cream, stirring constantly until thickened.
Stir in the chives, parsley, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Combine and serve

Add the potato pieces to the sauce and heat until warmed through.
Serve immediately.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + chivetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together611 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,150 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,062 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Enriches the sauce and carries flavour as the base of the roux.
Flour: Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter to form a roux.
Milk or cream: Forms the liquid body of the sauce, which thickens as it heats.
Cooked potatoes: Provide the starchy bulk that the sauce coats and warms through.

The step that matters

Adding the milk gradually while stirring constantly. Adding liquid slowly and stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed in the butter, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the chive

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

Carrotfits about as well
Chivethe original
Parsnipfits about as well
Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, flour, milk, parsley, pepper, nutmeg. 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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Potatoes, with White Sauce