Name: Milanaise Potatoes
Ingredients: potatoes; boiling chicken stock; coarse sea salt; white pepper; whipped cream; grated Parmesan cheese; butter

Why it works: Potato and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,756 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-decenal, which smells green, must. The science ↓

Milanaise Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Peel and boil the desired amount of potatoes until tender.
Press the potatoes through a ricer into a heated bowl.
Whip the potatoes with a fork, gradually adding boiling chicken stock until creamy.
Season with coarse sea salt and white pepper.
Add enough whipped cream to achieve a consistency that can be beaten with a Dover egg beater.
Beat the mixture for five minutes.
Heap the mixture in a buttered baking dish.
Sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.
Brown lightly in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C).
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.

Potato + chickentop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,756 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,163 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Chicken + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,846 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, chicken, cream, parmesan cheese, butter):

Garlicfits better
Celeryfits better
Thymefits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, chicken, cream, parmesan cheese, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.