Name: Potatoes a LA Creme
Ingredients: potatoes; ¼ pint thick white sauce or béchamel; minced parsley (optional); spinach; coarse sea salt; butter (2 ounces); flour (1 tablespoon); veal gravy or boiling cream; pounded sugar (optional)

Why it works: Potato and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,855 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potatoes a LA Creme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes and toss them gently in ½ cup of thick white sauce or béchamel, with or without minced parsley.
Pick the spinach leaves from the stems and wash them thoroughly in spring water, changing the water several times.
Shake the spinach in a dry cloth or drain it on a sieve.
Boil well-salted water and add the spinach, pressing it down with a skimmer to ensure even cooking.
Cook the spinach for 8 to 10 minutes until tender, then drain and cool it in fresh water.
Form the spinach into balls and press out the moisture with your hands.
Chop the spinach finely on a clean surface.
In a saucepan, melt 2 ounces of butter, add the chopped spinach, and stir over low heat for 10 minutes until dry.
Dredge in 1 tablespoon of flour and stir it in.
Gradually add a few spoonfuls of veal gravy or boiling cream, and if desired, add pounded sugar for a sweeter dish.
Stew until well absorbed, then serve hot with small fried bread pieces or puff pastry.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Potato + parsleytop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + spinachtop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together646 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Parsley + spinachtop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,025 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Potato + buttertop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together6,445 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together122,858 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, sauce, spinach, butter, flour, veal, sugar):

Nutmegabout as good a flavor fit
Capersabout as good a flavor fit
Garlicabout as good a flavor fit
Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, sauce, spinach, butter, flour, veal, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).