Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Potatoes

A simple dish of boiled potatoes mixed with milk, butter, flour, onion, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Peel the potatoes and cut them into quarters, then into long, even strips.

  2. Soak the potatoes in cold water for 30 minutes.

Cook and season

  1. Cook the potatoes in boiling water with the minced onion until tender.

  2. Drain most of the water, then season with salt and pepper.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the cold milk with the butter and flour until smooth.

  2. Add the milk mixture to the potatoes and stir until it thickens.

  3. Stir in the chopped parsley and simmer for 5 minutes before serving.

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 become soft and tender when cooked.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the sauce becomes smooth and clings to the potatoes.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the sauce and helps it feel smooth.
Cold milk
Forms the creamy base of the sauce that thickens when heated with the flour.

The step that matters

Add the milk mixture and stir until it thickens. Flour thickens liquid only as its starch heats and swells. Stirring keeps the mixture smooth and prevents lumps from forming as the sauce thickens.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, milk, 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