Why it works: Potato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓
New Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the potatoes
Scrape or rub off the skins of the new potatoes.
Cook the potatoes in a little water until tender, then drain.
Make the milk sauce
Pour sweet milk over the potatoes and heat to boiling.
In a small bowl, mix flour with a little cold milk until smooth.
Add the flour mixture to the boiling milk, stirring until thickened.
Finish and serve
Season with coarse sea salt and serve.
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.
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Potato + milktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- New potatoes
- Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and soft when cooked.
- Sweet milk
- Forms the creamy liquid that is thickened into a sauce for the potatoes.
- All-purpose flour
- Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as its starch swells when heated.
The step that matters
Add the flour mixture to the boiling milk, stirring until thickened.. Flour lumps form if it is added without being smoothed in cold milk first, and stirring while the milk boils keeps the starch dispersed so the sauce thickens evenly.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour):
- Arrowrootfits better
- Potatothe original
- Sweet potatofits about as well
- Parsnipfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against 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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