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Hashed Potatoes, Browned

A baked dish of cubed potatoes, celery, onion, and milk, finished with a browned top.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Hashed Potatoes, Browned

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Combine the potatoes, celery, onion, and salt in a pot.

  2. Cook until the potatoes are tender but not broken.

  3. Drain the water and transfer the potatoes to a buttered baking dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the hot milk with the softened butter and flour until smooth. Stir in the parsley.

  2. Pour the milk mixture over the potatoes.

Bake and brown

  1. Cover the dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes.

  2. Remove the cover and brown the potatoes under the broiler until golden.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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, providing starchy body that softens and absorbs the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavor and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth sauce that clings to the potatoes.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding creaminess and moisture.

The step that matters

Browning under the broiler. Broiling needs close watching because the surface can go from golden to burnt quickly. Browning comes from Maillard reactions between sugars and proteins at high heat, so the potatoes need only enough time to color.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, celery, milk, butter, flour, 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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