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Broiled Potatoes

Broiled potatoes are sliced boiled potatoes coated in flour, grilled, then finished with butter, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Broiled Potatoes

Why it works: Potato and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 235 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Broiled Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice cold boiled potatoes lengthwise into ¼‑inch thick slices.

  2. Dip each slice in wheat flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the slices on a grill over a bright fire of coals.

  2. Brown both sides nicely.

  3. Transfer to a hot dish, add a bit of butter, and season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

  4. Serve hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + wheattop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together235 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled potatoes
Form the main body of the dish, softening inside while the outside crisps over the fire.
Wheat flour
Forms a thin coating that helps the surface brown and crisp on the grill.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the hot potatoes after cooking, contributing flavour and moisture.

The step that matters

Brown both sides nicely. The flour-dusted surface needs enough direct heat to brown without burning. Browning depends on the Maillard reaction, which needs high surface heat and dry exposed starch. Too little heat leaves the slices pale and soft, while too much can scorch the flour before the interior warms through.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, flour, butter, 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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