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Irish Potatoes, Stewed

A creamy stew of butter, flour, milk, herbs, and boiled potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Irish Potatoes, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until smooth.

  2. Add the chopped parsley, thyme, salt, and pepper, and mix well.

  3. Pour in the milk and heat over medium, stirring constantly until it boils.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the cold boiled potatoes into long, narrow strips or slices and add them to the saucepan.

  2. Allow to boil briefly, then serve hot.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,586 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour into the roux base.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, stable sauce when cooked with the butter.
Rich milk
Forms the body of the sauce, which thickens as it heats and boils.
Cold boiled potatoes
Serve as the starch that soaks up the sauce and gives the dish its bulk.

The step that matters

Stirring the milk as it heats. Milk scorches on the bottom of a pan and flour can clump if the liquid is added or heated unevenly. Constant stirring keeps the sauce smooth and prevents burnt milk solids from forming before it reaches a boil.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, parsley, thyme, pepper, milk):

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Parsnipfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, parsley, thyme, pepper, milk. 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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