Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Potatoes

A simple stew of potatoes simmered with milk, onion, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Stewed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the potatoes

  1. Slice the potatoes and cook them in hot water until tender but not breaking.

  2. Drain half of the water and replace it with an equal amount of milk that has been boiled with onion slices and then strained.

Finish and serve

  1. Add pepper, coarse sea salt, a good lump of butter rolled in flour, and chopped parsley.

  2. Simmer for three minutes and transfer to a vegetable dish.

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

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and soften into a tender, soft texture when cooked.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness to the liquid that coats the potatoes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it simmers, helping the sauce cling to the potatoes.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour lump. Flour rolled into butter must be stirred into the simmering liquid so it disperses without clumping. The mixture then needs time to cook, which thickens the sauce and removes the raw flour taste.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, pepper, butter, flour, 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.

More stewed potatoes recipes

with Bacon 3with Mustard Sauce 3 See all 70 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes