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Scooped Potatoes

A creamy potato mash made by scooping boiled potatoes, adding milk, butter, flour, parsley, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Scooped Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Boil

  1. Pare and scoop out the potatoes using a potato-gouge.

  2. Boil the scooped potatoes in salted water for 20 minutes.

Add milk and butter

  1. Drain the water and add ½ cup of cold milk.

  2. Simmer gently until the potatoes are tender.

  3. Stir in a lump of butter rolled in flour until melted.

Season and serve

  1. Add minced parsley, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Stew for 3 minutes and pour into a deep 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the starchy body of the dish, which softens and becomes fluffy when mashed.
Cold milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the mash into a smooth texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Helps thicken the mash slightly when mixed with the butter.

The step that matters

Stir in the butter rolled in flour until melted. Flour coated on the butter disperses evenly and thickens the mash without lumps. Stirring until fully melted keeps the texture smooth rather than greasy or pasty.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

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