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Stripped Potatoes, Stewed

Stewed stripped potatoes cooked with milk, butter, flour, parsley, salt, and pepper.

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

Stripped Potatoes, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Pare and cut the potatoes into lengthwise strips.

  2. Cover the potatoes with boiling water and stew for twenty minutes.

  3. Drain nearly all the water.

Finish and serve

  1. Add 1 cup of cold milk, salt, and pepper, and bring to a boil.

  2. Stir in 1 tablespoon of butter rolled in 1 tablespoon of flour and a little chopped parsley.

  3. Cook for two minutes and serve.

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 + 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 body of the dish, softening as they stew to a tender texture.
Cold milk
Provides the liquid that turns the potatoes into a creamy, saucy dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Rolled with butter, it thickens the milk into a light sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the butter and flour. Butter rolled in flour must be stirred into hot milk so the flour disperses without lumps and thickens evenly as the mixture heats.

Swap the parsley

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

  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, pepper, butter, flour. 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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