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Creamed Potatoes

Creamed potatoes are boiled potatoes mixed with a butter, flour, milk sauce, seasoned with salt, pepper, and parsley.

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 ↓

Creamed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and mix until smooth.

  3. Gradually stir in the milk (or milk and cream) until well combined.

Cook the potatoes

  1. Add the diced potatoes to the sauce and cook on low heat, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes absorb most of the liquid.

  2. Be careful not to mash the potatoes or let the milk scorch.

  3. Season with salt and pepper just before serving, and stir in the chopped parsley.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the dish as the starch that thickens with the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour and carries the flour into a smooth roux.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce as it cooks with the butter.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base of the sauce, giving it body and a mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook the potatoes gently and stir without mashing. Low heat and gentle stirring keep the milk from scorching on the pan base and keep the potato pieces intact. Mashing releases more starch, which makes the sauce gluey rather than creamy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

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