Skip to main content
Side

Crbam Potatoes with Green Peppers

Diced potatoes and diced green peppers combined with a cream sauce and simmered on the stove.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Crbam Potatoes with Green Peppers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the potatoes into dice.

  2. Parboil the potatoes in salted water, or use cold potatoes.

  3. Make a cream sauce.

  4. Mix the cream sauce with the potatoes.

  5. Remove all seeds from the green peppers.

  6. Scald the green peppers.

  7. Cut the green peppers into dice.

Combine and simmer

  1. Combine the peppers with the potatoes in a pot on the stove.

  2. Season with salt.

  3. Simmer for ten minutes or until the peppers are tender.

  4. Ensure the potatoes do not break.

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

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

  2. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Potato + saucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Potatoes
Provide the starchy bulk that gives the dish its soft, creamy body.
Green peppers
Add a fresh, slightly bitter vegetable flavor and some tender texture to the dish.
Cream sauce
Coats the potatoes and adds richness and moisture.

The step that matters

Simmer gently without breaking the potatoes. Cooked potato pieces are fragile and can disintegrate under vigorous boiling, turning the dish mushy. A gentle simmer keeps the cubes intact while the peppers soften.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, cream, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, cream, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Eggplant CakesEggplant Cakes34 recipesEscalloped Tomatoes (Scalloped Tomatoes)Escalloped Tomatoes (Scalloped Tomatoes)25 recipesParsnip CroquettesParsnip Croquettes12 recipesOnion PuddingOnion Pudding9 recipes