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Fricassee Potatoes

Fricassee potatoes are boiled potatoes sautéed with butter, parsley, pepper, salt, and a little flour, simmered in hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricassee Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the cold boiled potatoes into square pieces.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the potatoes with pepper, coarse sea salt, and a little flour.

  3. Add 1 cup of drawn butter and 1 cup of chopped parsley.

  4. Pour in a little hot water and let it simmer until very hot, stirring often.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Form the bulk of the dish and absorb the butter and seasoning as they heat.
Flour
Lightly thickens the butter and hot water into a coating that clings to the potatoes.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and moisture, coating the potatoes and carrying flavor.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green aroma and a clean herbal note that balances the butter.

The step that matters

Simmer until very hot, stirring often. Flour thickens the liquid only as it heats evenly. Stirring often keeps the flour from settling and scorching on the pan bottom, and keeps the potatoes from breaking apart, so the coating stays smooth.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, butter, 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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