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Cream Potatoes

Cream Potatoes are boiled potatoes mixed with milk, butter, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and cut the potatoes into small squares or rounds.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook the potatoes in boiling water with salt for 20 minutes.

  2. Drain the water and add the milk.

  3. When the milk bubbles, add the butter mixed with water and cold milk.

  4. Stir in the chopped parsley and simmer for 5 minutes.

  5. Serve immediately.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Starch that breaks down into a soft, creamy body when cooked and mashed with liquid.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, turning the potatoes into a creamy, smooth dish.
Butter
Adds fat for a silky mouthfeel and a rich flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the butter mixed with water and cold milk. Adding cold liquid to butter stirred into hot milk helps it emulsify and blend in smoothly rather than separating into greasy pools. Keeping the milk just bubbling, not boiling hard, helps prevent scorching and curdling.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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