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Potato Puree

A creamy potato puree with onion, celery, milk, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Peel and boil the potatoes in water until very soft.

  2. Drain and mash the potatoes until light and fluffy.

Make the puree

  1. In a separate pot, combine the chopped onion and celery with the milk and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the salt, white pepper, celery salt, and pour the mixture over the mashed potatoes.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve and return it to the pot to boil again.

  4. Mix the melted butter with the flour and stir it into the puree.

  5. Let it boil for five minutes, then serve.

  6. If too thick, thin with hot milk.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  4. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the puree, providing starch that gives it body and a soft texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the mash into a smooth, creamy puree.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavor and a silky mouthfeel in the finished puree.
Flour
Thickens the puree as it boils, helping it hold a smooth, spoonable consistency.
Onion
Contributes savory aromatic flavor that infuses the milk.

The step that matters

Boiling the puree after adding the butter and flour. Flour needs to boil to cook out its raw starch taste and to thicken fully. Stirring it in smoothly before boiling helps prevent lumps and a pasty texture.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, onion, celery, flour, butter, parsley. 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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