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Cold Potatoes

Cold boiled potatoes sliced and served with butter, milk, and optional onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cold Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Slice the cold boiled potatoes thinly and season with salt and pepper.

  2. In a frying pan, heat the butter or drippings until hot, then add the potatoes.

  3. Stir and cut the potatoes with a knife until heated through, then serve immediately.

Onion variation

  1. For an onion variation, heat drippings, add chopped onion, and fry until light straw color.

  2. Add seasoned potatoes and stir until hot, then serve.

Creamy version

  1. For a creamy version, heat milk in a frying pan.

  2. Mix butter and flour, then stir into boiling milk, season, and add diced potatoes.

  3. Heat through and 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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the bulk of the dish, softening slightly and absorbing the butter or cream.
Butter or sweet drippings
Add fat for richness and help the potatoes brown lightly in the pan.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the creamy version, adding moisture and a smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the boiling milk into a light sauce when cooked with the butter.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma when fried in drippings until light straw colored.

The step that matters

Stir the flour and butter into the milk while it boils. Flour clumps if dropped in raw or added to cold liquid. Mixing it with fat first and stirring into boiling milk lets the starch disperse and thicken evenly.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, pepper, milk, flour):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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