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Pilgrim Potatoes

A baked potato dish with flour, milk, egg, onions, breadcrumbs, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Pilgrim Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix together the flour, milk, beaten egg, and chopped parsley.

  2. Add the fried onions to the mixture and stir thoroughly.

  3. Slice the boiled potatoes and add them to the mixture, ensuring they are covered with milk.

Bake

  1. Sprinkle the top with bread crumbs, nutmeg, and additional chopped parsley.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until well browned.

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. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 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. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the milk and egg mixture so the filling holds together when baked.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set as it bakes.
Potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish, absorbing the milk mixture and becoming tender.
Milk
Provides moisture and liquid that sets with the egg and flour into a custard-like filling.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory flavor after frying in butter.

The step that matters

Bake until well browned. Baking long enough lets the egg and flour set the milk into a firm custard, while the top browns. Underbaking leaves the filling loose and runny.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, parsley, butter, potato, bread. 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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