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Cold Boiled Potatoes

Cold boiled potatoes are sliced, stewed in butter, and seasoned with chervil, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 774 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cold Boiled Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes in their skins and let them cool with the skins on.

  2. Peel the cooled potatoes and slice them into ½-inch thick rounds.

Stew and season

  1. Heat a large amount of butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the potato slices, cover, and stew them in the butter for about 15 minutes. Shake the pan occasionally to prevent sticking or browning.

  3. Stir in the chopped chervil and parsley, and season with salt and pepper.

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. Chervil + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + cherviltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together96 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Potatoes
Form the body of the dish, holding their shape as they are sliced and stewed.
Butter
Carries heat evenly around the potato slices and adds richness and flavor.
Chervil
Adds a delicate, fresh herbal aroma at the end of cooking.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green herbal flavor and color just before serving.

The step that matters

Shaking the pan while stewing. Potato slices in hot butter can stick to the pan and brown unevenly. Occasional shaking keeps them moving so they cook gently and evenly without scorching.

Swap the chervil

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Chervilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, parsley, 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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