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Potato Puree

A creamy potato dish with onion, celery, butter, eggs, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the base

  1. Combine mashed potatoes, chopped onion, chopped celery, and boiling water in a pot, and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Cook gently for 30 minutes, stirring often to prevent scorching.

Strain and thicken

  1. Strain the mixture.

  2. Rub it through a soup strainer back into the pot.

  3. Add parsley and floured butter, stirring until it boils.

Finish with eggs

  1. Heat milk in another vessel.

  2. Pour heated milk over beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Add egg mixture to the pot.

  4. Stir over heat for 1 minute.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Provides the body and smooth base that the puree is built on.
Eggs
Set with gentle heat to enrich and thicken the puree.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid through starch when heated.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma as it cooks into the base.
Celery
Adds subtle savoury aroma to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture. Egg proteins set with heat and can curdle or scramble if the mixture gets too hot or boils. Keeping the heat gentle while stirring produces a smooth, evenly thickened puree.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, flour, egg, celery, pepper, parsley. 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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